




COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 


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T. B. UBER 


i 






SOUL-WINNING 

# 

SERMONS 


s 


BY 


T. B. UBER 

w 

Pastor English Lutheran Church, 
Princeton, Illinois. 

Copyright 1923 



RECORD PRINTING & PUBLISHING CO. 
PRINCETON, ILL. 


X ? 0 bl© 

/U/3Sb 


TO MY FRIEND 

HARVEY DANIEL HOOVER, Ph. D. 

THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED 



% 26 1923 


©CU698822 


CONTENTS 


Page 

RECONSECRATION: 

A Crusade for Christ_____11 

Following Afar Off......... .22 

Trusting in the Mountains.___..26 

The Supreme Tragedy of the Church Member....31 
Back to the Altar.........37 


CONVICTION: 

Why Doesn’t God Kill the Devil?.43 

The Greatest Sin in Princeton___49 

Easy Religion.........56 

The Call of the Unsaved..........64 

That Far Country._______70 

DECISION: 

Lest Satan Get an Advantage........76 

The Sold Birthright______.83 

What is Lost?......89 

What God Expects of Us...__94 

Bent But Not Broken.....TOO 


























































Introduction 


The method of evangelism used in our Soul-Winning Mis¬ 
sions in the English Lutheran Church, Princeton, Illinois grew 
from an effort to interest a large group of unchurched peo¬ 
ple in an adult class for the study of the Christian Religion. 
The members of the church would come to such a class but 
this other large group would not come. Various methods 
were tried. They were not successful. We felt we had failed. 
It seemed there was no way to reach them. Then it was that 
we conceived the idea of putting on a Great Soul-Winning 
Mission which would be an evangelism entirely in harmony 
with the traditions of our Lutheran church and thoroughly 
Biblical. The pastor would do the preaching. The mission 
was a call to all who would hear to come and listen to a clear 
statement of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian reli¬ 
gion. It aimed to arouse those who were then Christians to 
greater activity in the Kingdom of God and to win to Christ 
those who have never believed in Him. It sought to so attract¬ 
ively present Jesus Christ and His offer of Salvation that per¬ 
sons would be drawn to Him in love and voluntarily choose 
Him for the Master of their lives. It endeavored to arouse 
a serious concern for the welfare of the soul and then to 
create a desire for further instruction concerning the way 
of Salvation. This instruction to be given by the pastor in a 
special adult catachetical class to be formed at the close of 
the mission and to continue each Thursday evening during the 
Lenten season. It was made plain that no one would be asked 
to unite with the church until he had received adequate in¬ 
formation concerning the Christian religion and understood 
what it meant to be a follower of Christ. At Easter an oppor¬ 
tunity was given to each inquirer who had investigated 
Christianity to unite with the church of his or her choice. The 
mission lasted three weeks. A volunteer chorus choir of 
seventy-five voices sang each night accompanied by an orches¬ 
tra. A force of more than seventy personal workers assisted 


7 



INTRODUCTION 


by holding meetings for prayer, visitation, and invitation dur¬ 
ing the day. The people came. Night after night the church 
was packed. A class of over two hundred interested souls 
was formed in the local church. Three of the other churches 
of the city organized similar classes. More than one hun¬ 
dred members were added to the church, and the spiritual 
life of the community was wonderfully quickened. God great¬ 
ly blessed these sermons here in Princeton. May His bless¬ 
ing accompany them as they go forth in His name and may 
they continue to win souls for the Kingdom. 


Lent 1923. 


T. B. UBER. 




8 




Fore ward 


DEFORE me lie a few of the sermons preached in 
Princeton, Illinois by the Lutheran pastor and 
our friend, Rev. T. B. Uber. They are not liter¬ 
ary theoretical discourses prepared as essays for the 
public to read. They are not a set of sermons for 
the Church-year and simply for the edifications of 
the saints. They are not “The Way of Salvation in 
the Lutheran Church”, or “The Way Made Plain” so 
much as a call to cold Christians and a lost world 
to get ready to ask for the way of Salvation. In 
other words, the author believes that he and his 
Lutheran Church should call a perishing world to be 
saved and with his own soul on fire has given to the 
Church in general a sample of his own local work, 
hoping that the great results in Princeton, Illinois 
will be duplicated in all other congregations and 
charges. What we need above all today in the Luth¬ 
eran Church of the world is a sound, sane evangelism 
to call the world to search the Scriptures and find 
Christ and Salvation—an eternal life beginning with 
power, now. May this little volume help many. 
February, 1923 S. P. LONG, 

Chicago. 


9 



























































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Reconsecration 


A Crusade for Christ 

Text.—“Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well 
able to overcome it.”—Numbers 13:30. 

I WANT to speak to you in this opening service of 
our Great Soul-winning Mission on the subject, 
“A Crusade for Christ.” The church is a crusade 
rather than a sheepfold. “For He calleth His own 
sheep by name and leadeth them out—and the sheep 
follow Him, for they know His voice.” The world 
needs business houses and business propaganda (ad¬ 
vertising campaigns). The world needs educational 
institutions and their propaganda. The world needs 
insurance companies and their propaganda. The 
world needs courts of justice and judicial propa¬ 
ganda. The world needs churches and religious 
propaganda. It is the business of the bank to handle 
money properly. The business of the school is to 
educate. The business of an insurance company to 
sell insurance. It is the business of a court of justice 
to administer justice. Nobody finds fault or criti¬ 
cizes when they function in our life. Now it is the 
business of the church to teach the Christian religion 
and no one should find fault when we attend strictly 
to our own business. 

There are certain things which you expect of a 
bank, a business house or an educational institution 
and there are certain things which you do not ex¬ 
pect of them. You don’t go to a bank to buy your 
shoes, or bread or to hear the Gospel. There are 
certain things which people have a right to expect 


ll 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


of a church and there are certain things which they 
have a right to expect of a Christian and there are 
also certain things which they have no right to ex¬ 
pect. When a church or a Christian functions accord¬ 
ing to the directions of the Holy word of God the 
honor and esteem of the community is merited. 

We learn lessons from business houses. There 
are certain times when they have sales. They adver¬ 
tise. They make special efforts to revive their trade. 
They do things to attract the attention of people to 
their business. There are times when the church 
gets tired, sleepy, or lazy and needs an awakening. 
There is need for a crusade for Christ. This mission 
is held in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ 
Whose we are and Whom we serve with the fervent 
hope that those who are now Christians may be 
quickened and those who are not Christians may be 
won to Christ. 

The time has come for the church of Christ to 
take an inventory of the world’s liabilities and of her 
own spiritual resources, responsibilities, and oppor¬ 
tunities and to arouse her loyal constituency to enter 
upon a great crusade by a thrilling, inspiring, impell¬ 
ing call to service such as came from the heart of a 
deeply spiritual and thoroly consecrated soul, charg¬ 
ed with a burning passion for God in the long ago 
when he said, “Let us go up at once and possess the 
land, for we are well able to overcome it.” 

Caleb came before the assembled hosts of Israel 
with a great program of propaganda. They had 
gathered to hear the report of an intelligence com¬ 
mittee who had just returned from making a survey 
of the promised land. They are now ready to report. 
It is an historic occasion. It is of momentous impor¬ 
tance to Israel and to all the world. Israel had not 
all agreed about the work before them. There had 


12 




A CRUSADE FOR CHRIST 


been some bitter difference of opinion. Some were 
pessimistic, some optimistic, some wanted to go 
ahead, some wanted to turn back, and some wanted 
to stand still. They needed inspiration, encourage¬ 
ment, a driving impulse to keep them moving for¬ 
ward. They needed something to unite their forces 
and to cement them together. Those who were zeal¬ 
ous for the cause hoped this report would do it. One 
of the committee stands before the assembly. They 
wait with breathless suspense his message. What will 
with breathless suspense his message. What will 
he say ? He speaks: “It is a truly wonderful country,” 
he says, “a land flowing with milk and honey.” Then 
he displays a great cluster of grapes from the val¬ 
ley of Eschol. They press closely around him for 
the next word, interested, enthusiastic, greatly en¬ 
thusiastic, greatly encouraged. Then he says, “But 
there are giants there. There are walled cities there, 
and we can’t conquer the land.” All was immediately 
changed to discouragement and confusion. They 
were ready to abandon all hope of ever reaching their 
destination. Then it was that Caleb arose and stilled 
the people before Moses and plead with them not 
to abandon their God-given task but to continue their 
crusade. He outlined a plan of campaign the accom¬ 
plishment of which would have been worthy of any 
nation. I want to direct your attention to this pro¬ 
gram of Caleb, so that we who are here assembled 
may catch the vision of this man of God, and with 
the vision get the passion, and with the passion get 
the power to move ourselves and our constituency 
under the enabling and directing power of the Holy 
Spirit to realize in our generation the thing which 
Caleb was unable to do in that generation. His mes¬ 
sage is a great heart and soul battle call to every 
soldier of Jesus Christ to put on the whole armour 


13 





SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


of God, unsheathe his sword and to hasten forth un¬ 
der the banner and leadership of King Immanuel to 
battle and conquer in His Name. 

1. The Task. Let us look first at the task which 
Caleb set for his generation. What was it? It was 
for Israel to completely obey God—to occupy the 
Land of Canaan. He didn’t say it was easy. He saw 
the giants too, and the walled cities. But he saw 
also the springs, the flowing streams, the pasture 
lands and the vintage grounds and the promise 
of God, “Surely I will give it thee.” In our crusade 
we must first see and define our task. The church 
is a divine institution. An organism placed in the 
world with a specific work to do. She differs from 
the other organizations of this world as a tree differs 
from a brick wall in structure. She has a definite 
work to do and she can’t do everything. She must 
know her business and attend to it strictly. In these 
days there is a marked difference of opinion as to 
the function of the church. Some say the church 
should be a big policeman and keep order in the 
world. Others that the church should be a political 
organization to control the governments of the world. 
Others that the church should be a labor institution 
to protect the interests of the men and women who 
work. Still others that the church is a sort of his¬ 
torical society, a social club, or an amusement center 
to entertain the public. If the church becomes a 
policing force she must resort to the sword. If she 
turns politician she will soon become as corrupt as 
the Democrats think the Republicans are, or as the 
Republicans think the Democrats are, or as corrupt 
as the roman church during the dark ages. If the 
church turns into a labor organization she will soon 
parallel the I. W. W.’s or the Bolsheviki. If the 
church turns to society she will soon cease to func- 


14 






A CRUSADE FOR CHRIST 


tion in a spiritual manner. No, the task of the 
church does not lie in any of these spheres. She is 
to carry a distinctly spiritual message and bear a 
spiritual responsibility to this present material 
world. She is to give birth to sons of God and to nur¬ 
ture them into Christian character and manhood. 
Her task is more than to enjoy her faith, more than 
to hold and defend her faith. It is to propagate her 
faith. And that not by armies nor by political pro¬ 
grams, nor by complete and perfect organization, but 
by preaching and living the Gospel. But some one 
says, “Should not the church correct social, moral 
and political wrongs?” I repty, “Yes, her influence 
should do so.” That is the by-product of the church. 
Such organizations as the Anti-Saloon League, the 
Red Cross Society and the Y. M. C. A. are not the 
church. They are by-products of the church. A 
Christian should radiate the influence of Christ 
where-ever he is—in state halls, society, in business. 
In this way the power of the church is felt while 
she goes on doing her heaven destined work—trans¬ 
forming men. The salvation of men is the tremen¬ 
dous, difficult task of the church. It is her objective. 
Her promised land. Some one says the task is nar¬ 
row. Let it be so. It is as wide as Christ and the 
Bible. A narrow stream charged with energy cuts 
through granite rock her course, while a broad slug¬ 
gish stream soon loses itself in a marshy stagnant 
swamp. 

2. Going to the Task. “Let us go up at once.” 
The second thing Caleb said in his campaign was, 
“Let us go to the task. We must get out of this 
wilderness. The job to be done is not here. It is up 
in Canaan. We can’t do anything until we get there. 
We are too far away.” In our crusade we must also 
go to our task. No matter how strong the arm, it 


15 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


avails nothing when out of reach of the opponent. 
No matter what force or deadly power in the weapon, 
when out of reach of the foe it is powerless. The ar¬ 
gument is let us engage the opposition. Let us cross 
swords with them. Let us go to the front. So long as 
our money, ships, munitions and men were here in 
the United States they didn’t help the allies much. 
We had to get them overseas. We had to take them 
to the task at whatever cost. Then they were effec¬ 
tive and not until then. That is exactly what Caleb 
wanted done. No tarrying, no loitering. We must get 
out of our wilderness too. There are too many 
temptations to return to Egypt. We are too near the 
flesh pots. We must go to the task. We can’t wait 
for it to come to us. We must start something. We 
can’t just hold out a net and wait. We can’t just 
set a trap of modern device and ingenuity and let it 
work automatically when a soul comes along. Our 
wilderness may be indifference, apathy, spiritual 
paralysis, or laziness. We must get out of it, what¬ 
ever it is, and get to the front line trenches and seek 
an active sector. Let us look closer at the wonder¬ 
ful appeal of Caleb. “Let us” means co-operation, 
team work. “Go” means progress, getting some¬ 
where. On this mount enough. “Up” requires pow¬ 
er to meet resistance. “At once” means now, imme¬ 
diately. “Up, this is the day” was the cry of De¬ 
borah to over cautious Barak. In a football game 
between Bucknell and Gettysburg colleges at Lewis- 
burg, Pa., Bucknell was driving her opponent for a 
first down at every rush. The student body was 
frantic with the thrill of victory for the home team. 
Nothing could stop the terrific line plunges. Gettys¬ 
burg’s men fought like tigers but they could do noth¬ 
ing with Bucknell supported by such a spirit in the 
student body. The Gettysburg coach saw the situa- 


16 




A CRUSADE FOR CHRIST 


lion and he saw too that the strength of Bucknell 
was in the student body rather than in ,the team. 
What could be done? In a few more plays a touch¬ 
down would be made. A sudden inspiration. A 
whistle sounded. All playing stopped. A new man 
was sent to the Gettysburg line. One of the players 
was taken out. Cheering stopped. The students 
were puzzled, they wondered what had happened. 
The whistle sounded again and the game proceeded. 
Gettysburg turned the tide and soon pushed Buck¬ 
nell back until they gained all the lost ground, made 
a touchdown and won the g^me. All because a coach 
saw his task and went up at once. 

Can folks have the same enthusiasm in going 
up to this spiritual task as to the material ones? 
Why not? Are we not spiritual too? The one has 
back of it the impelling, driving impulse of material 
and physical well-being. The other has back of it our 
spiritual well-being. The one is a bread and butter 
problem. It must be done or there will be physical 
suffering. This necessity keeps folks at work whether 
they will or not. To go up to our greater spiritual 
task requires a similar driving persuasion. And have 
we not got it in our spiritual welfare? You say 
somehow it seems different. I grant it. The appeal 
must be made on a different basis. Babies will live 
if not baptized. Children will grow if not catechized 
and confirmed. Men will prosper if not church mem¬ 
bers. Folks know this. But I believe there is or 
can be developed within the church a spiritual back 
ground so sensitive to the appeal of Christ that at 
His word will go at once to the task for which we 
are fitted. But that background must be there. Caleb 
was a great leader, but his appeal was in vain, for 
there was nothing there to grip it. You can’t lead 
if you have nothing to follow you. The expert miner 


17 






SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


gets no coal from the hill if there is no coal there. 
You can’t catch fish no matter how skilled you are 
if there are no fish in the stream. You can’t carry 
water in a sieve. The bottom had dropped out of 
Israel. 

3. Doing the Task. “And possess the land.” The 
third thing that Caleb said was let us do the task. 
Possess the land. That was after all their real ob¬ 
jective, not seeing the land, not going up to the land 
but actually possessing it. Success with the hunter 
is not in seeing the game nor in getting within range 
of it but in actually bagging it. Success with the 
physician is not in correct diagnosis, nor proper 
treatment but in curing the patient. These cities, 
these vineyards, these streams are to be theirs. God 
had so willed it. Now he pleads with them to possess 

them. Our crusade is not over until we possess the 
world for Christ. The soldier’s work was not over 
when he reached the battle field. It really only began 

then. Then came the test of strength, endurance and 
skill. The struggle cry came before the shout of vic¬ 
tory. Christ wants us to win. “Ye are the light 
of the world. Ye are the salt of the earth.” “A little 
leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” We are deter¬ 
mined to win. That is why we have united in this 
Great Soul-Winning Mission. We have united our 
forces like so many strands twined together into one 
mighty cord of formidable strength with which 
to bind the strong leaders of the evil forces for the 
emancipation of human souls. We want to do our 
part in this great crusade in leadership and in the 
ranks. But to do this we must have a burning pas¬ 
sion for souls. That must be our cross as it was the 
cross of our great Captain. From His bleeding side 
on calvary in great travail came forth the church 
and from the church will come forth adherents just 


18 




A CRUSADE FOR CHRIST 


in proportion to the travail of the souls of her con¬ 
stituency. We want our people to do what Caleb 
could not get his people to do. But we must be pre¬ 
pared to pay the price of possession. “He that goeth 
forth with weeping bearing precious seed shall 
doubtless come again with rejoicing bringing his 
sheaves with him.” It takes just such a yearning 
for lost souls, a longing of breaking hearts until 
they come. Such earnestness, such passion will turn 
sinners to God and overcome the world for His sake. 
Beloved, don’t you think we have been plowing and 
sowing long enough to expect a harvest, a reaping 
time? May the joy of the harvest be ours. 

4. Able to do the Task. “For we are well able to 
overcome it.” The fourth thing that Caleb said to 
his generation was that they were able to conquer. 
The Hebrew words for able and overcome are al¬ 
most indentical. This means that if we are able, if 
we have the ability, we assume with the ability the 
moral obligation to use that ability aright. They 
were to do their part. They were to go as far as 
they could. They were to use all their available 
strength plus God. When a person is able to conquer 
it is pitiable to see him fail. They were able for God 
was their strength. He had said, “I will be with 
you, I will give you the land.” Fie had gone before 
them as they came out of Egypt. Would He aban¬ 
don them now? After all it was God’s work. And 
He was ready and willing to help them possess the 
land which He had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob. “Well able to overcome” means that they 
were prepared to do the work. Preparation is a 
large part of the secret of our power. Do we belong 
to the 22,000 who were rejected because they were 
afraid? Do we belong to the 9,700 who were reject¬ 
ed because they were inefficient? Or do we belong 


19 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


to the 300 who were chosen because they were ready 
to go at once? We need very careful preparation 
for this Mission of Soul-Winning. We need efficient 
workers. Our workers must frequently go before 
the throne for inspection and before the Lamb for 
equipment. We must be prepared to possess the land 
for the sake of being a blessing to others. They 
were advocates of personal liberty rather than per¬ 
sonal responsibility. That spirit weakened them. 
“Well able to overcome” means consecration to the 
crusade. It means that we will put our best into this 
great effort. It means that we will always look to 
God for our enabling. He is the real source of our 
power. We need no new machinery, just lubricate, 
adjust and adapt what we have. We need no new 
lines of communication, just repair and use the old 
ones. We need no new channels for God’s grace, 
just open up the old ones and keep them open. We 
need no new well, just redig the old ones the Phillis- 
tines have filled up. 

The Word and the Sacraments are enough. Let 
us preach and live this Word of God. Here is our 
most telling argument for Christ. We are doing 
God’s work. We are doing it under His direction. 
We are doing it for His glory. Here is our power. 
He will never leave us nor foresake us. “Lo I am 
with you always, even unto the end of the world.” 
“I can do all things through Christ Who strength- 
enth me.” “My God shall supply all your needs ac¬ 
cording to His riches in glory in Christ.” Beloved, 
the crusade is on. It is a worthy one, a holy one. 
We are well on the way. Other pastors and people 
in this church have wrought valiantly and many 
of them have passed beyond the Jordan. Their man¬ 
tles have fallen upon us. Let us go forward in the 
name of Christ. Let us serve our present age. Let 


20 




A CRUSADE FOR CHRIST 


us fulfill our calling. Let us not only hold our posi¬ 
tion but under God advance the cause of Christ and 
His kingdom. “Let us go up at once and possess the 
land for we are well able to overcome it.” 


21 




Following Afar Off 

Text.—“But Peter followed Him afar off.”—Matthew 26:58. 

W E WERE talking together last night about 
hearing the call of Jesus to a crusade for soul¬ 
winning. We noted that He calls His own 
sheep by name and leadeth them on to victory. We 
would like to connect the message this evening very 
closely with that one. There are some who have 
heard the call of Jesus but hear it no longer because 
they have been immersed in sin. There are some 
who do not hear His voice because they are not His 
own. There are others who do not hear it distinctly 
because they are listening to too many other calls. 
A friend of mine entered a telephone booth in a de¬ 
pot in a large city and was connected by the operator 
with a man in a distant part of the city. But he 
could not hear the voice of the speaker distinctly. He 
asked him to repeat again and again. At last the man 
said to him, “close the door of the booth and shut 
out the sound of the voices in the depot.” He did 
this and then he could hear distinctly. If we want 
to hear the voice of Jesus we must shut out the 
other voices. Then there are some who are too far 
away. There is grave danger from following too 
far off. May the Holy Spirit help me to lay heavily 
upon your hearts and my own our personal responsi¬ 
bility for Christian service. I trust that it shall be¬ 
come clear to us that our efficiency in service is de¬ 
creased in proportion as we increase the distance be¬ 
tween us and our Lord. That John reclining on the 
bosom of Jesus was a better example for us to follow 
than Peter who was skulking along the fringe of a 
crowd of unbelievers. 


22 


FOLLOWING AFAR OFF 


The incident of our text is a part of the Passion 
history. They were leading Jesus away to Caiaphas, 
the high priest where the scribes and elders were 
assembled. All the Disciples had fled from Him. 
Peter followed at a distance. They tried to find 
false witnesses. At length two came forth and 
said, “This fellow said He was able to destroy the 
temple of God and build it up in three days.” Then 
His accusers were content. They had evidence now. 
Peter was in the palace and a damsel said to him, 
“Thou wast also with Jesus.” He denied it. Then on 
the porch, another maid saw him. She said, “This 
fellow was also with Jesus.” With an oath he said, 
“I do not know the man.” Later others said, “Thou 
art one of them.” Fie began to curse and to swear 
and say, “I know not the man.” 

1. Peter was once very close to Jesus. Andrew 
had brought him. He dared to love Jesus. He was 
proud to be His disciple. He didn’t care who knew it. 
He was out and out for Jesus. He had some close con¬ 
tacts with Jesus. He made some great declarations 
about Him. When Jesus asked, “Whom do men say 
that I am, and whom do ye say that I am?” It was 
Peter who answered, “Thou are the Christ the Son 
of the Living God.” That was a great answer. 
Christ approved it. He was pretty close then. On 
the Mount of Transfiguration, he said, “Lord, it is 
good for us to be here.” He was close to his Lord 
up there. In answer to the question of Jesus, “Will 
ye also go away?” He replied, “Lord to whom shall 
we go, Thou hast the words of eternal life.” He 
was pretty close. In the death chamber, on the sea, 
in the Garden, in the upper room he was pretty close 
to Jesus, and when he was close he was happy, 
strong, safe and useful. 

2. Peter gets far away from Jesus. It didn’t take 


23 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


very long either. It didn’t take much. Just a bit of 
doubt, a little fear and some mistrust. Something 
came between Peter and Jesus and we find him fol¬ 
lowing afar off. A man is pretty far away from his 
friend who is in trouble and surrounded by his ene¬ 
mies when he says, “I do not know Him.” To say 
I do not know the man is a long ways from saying, 
“Thou are the Christ the Son of the Living God.” He 
doesn’t look very much like the fellow who a few 
hours before was ready to fight a whole mob for 
Jesus. He didn’t want to know Him now. He was 
pretty far away when he lied, cursed, and swore. He 
was weak, unhappy, unsafe and useless.. He doesn’t 
look much like a rock now. He doesn’t look much 
like a man. He looks a whole lot like a coward and a 
traitor. He wasn’t much of an asset for the cause 
of Christ just then. He was not only pretty useless 
but also in great danger. Ele was in worse danger 
than when he was sinking in the sea. He was near 
Jesus then but now he is far away. He is like a sick 
man far away from medical aid. Like an army cut 
off from its base of supplies. Like a man hanging- 
over a precipice by a weak rope. He was in a pretty 
bad crowd that night. It took a great soul to con¬ 
fess Christ there. Christ didn’t have many friends 
that night. 

3. But he was still following.. Though far away, 
he was still following. That part of it was good. 
There was a spiritual back ground there yet. There 
was something for Christ to see when He looked. 
Like doubting Thomas, he pursued the proper course. 
You remember Thomas assembled with the folks who 
did not doubt in the time of his doubt. That was a 
fine thing to do. So Peter still had his face in the 
right direction. He hadn’t turned his back on Christ. 
Though there were mountains between him and His 


24 





FOLLOWING AFAR OFF 


Lord, he had not turned away entirely. He had not 
openly and frequently indulged in sin. He was still 
somewhat decent and respectable. There was still 
hope for him. We can get a good distance away 
and still keep our faces towards the cross. That is 
the one bright spot in the picture. He was still look¬ 
ing the right way and still following though it was 
far off. Thank God the cross is on the hill top and can 
always be seen from the valley of sin. 

4. Peter came back to the Master. He remember¬ 
ed that he once loved that Man. He remembered the 
deeds of Jesus. He saw Jesus looking at him. He 
went out into that night of separation from Christ 
weeping bitterly. He came back in the early dawn 
of a great new day in the sun light at the empty 
tomb. He saw His Lord alive. He was reinstated. He 
thrice told the Blessed Master that he loved Him. 
He became a strong defender and propagandist of 
the faith. See him on the day of Pentecost. 0, the 
courage of that rock then. How he preached, how he 
lived for Christ. How he died for Jesus. Tradition 
says he met his death by crucifixion with his head 
downward. When he was close again, he was strong, 
happy, safe and useful. Are there any here tonight 
who once loved the Lord, who were once very close 
to Him, who were then happy, strong, safe and use¬ 
ful and who for any reason have permitted some¬ 
thing to separate you from your Master? If you 
are all following up close,, thank God, take courage 
and go ahead. But if there are any who are fol¬ 
lowing afar off, will you not close up now ? Get near 
to the cross this very night. Make good yet. Be 
a rock for Christ. You may if you will, be happy, 
strong, safe and useful in the Kingdom of God. 


25 




Trusting in the Mountains 

Text.—“Woe to them that are in ease in Zion, and that trust 
in the mountain of Samaria.’’—Amos 6:1. 

I N THIS chapter the Prophet Amos gives us a won¬ 
derful picture of the times in which he lived. And 
as conditions at the present time seem to parallel 
those of his day in many instances, I want to quote 
to you what he says: ‘‘Woe to them that are at ease 
in Zion, and that trust in the mountain of Samaria. 
Ye that put far away the evil day and cause the 
seat of violence to come near: that lie upon beds of 
ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, 
and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves 
out of the midst of the stall; that chant to the sound 
of the viol and invent to themselves instruments 
of music, like David: that drink wine in bowls, and 
anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but 
they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. 
Therefore now shall they go captive with the first 
that go captive, and the banquet of them that 
stretched themselves shall be removed. The Lord 
hath sworn by Himself, saith the Lord the God of 
hosts, I abhor the excellency of Jacob, and hate his 
palaces: therefore will I deliver up the city with all 
that is therein.” There is one phrase here which 
vividly describes the daily life of pleasure loving, 
self-satisfied, luxurient, self-indulgent people. That 
phrase is “At ease in Zion.” We want to note the 
condition of the lives of the people at this time, its 
cause, the results, and then make an application to 
our present times. 

1. The condition. “Woe to them that are at ease 
in Zion.” What does at ease in Zion mean ? At ease 
means a state of being comfortable, freedom from 


26 



TRUSTING IN THE MOUNTAINS 


pain, trouble, annoyance, relief from constraint, 
labor, effort, or responsibility, quiet, freedom from 
formality. A state of being amused or entertained, 
relaxation. It means idleness and at the same time 
intense activity. Idleness regarding right, activity 
regarding wrong. Let me picture it before you in my 
own way. But you must help me by using your im¬ 
aginations. There they are, great, big, strong, husky 
men lying upon beds of ivory, stretching themselves 
upon their couches. It is just a picture of a lazy 
bunch sleeping and lounging. They spend a lot of 
their time that way. It is a bad sign when people 
invest too much money in beds and couches. Then 
let us go further. See them eating the lambs of the 
flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall. 
Yes, eating the very choicest food they can get. 
Lambs and calves. Their food must be of the young 
and tender variety. It is a bad sign too when folks 
become so particular about the food they eat. Sleep¬ 
ing, lounging and eating. But that is not all. They 
chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to them¬ 
selves instruments of music. Here is their enter¬ 
tainment. Just our modern jazz. But let us go on 
with the scene. They drink wine in bowls. This is 
their indulgence. But now for the climax. “They 
anoint themselves with chief ointments.” Now isn’t 
that about the limit. No, it is not women who are 
doing this, but men, big strapping men. 

“Play a game of pingpong, 

Have a little chat, 

Eat a little chocolate fudge, 

Then go find your hat, 

Say you’ve had a jolly time 
As she waves her fan. 

Now isn’t that exciting sport 
To tempt a healthy m^n ?” 


27 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


This is the condition. And think of it. They 
were the church members of that time. They were 
God's chosen people. They were what God had to 
depend upon to represent Him on earth. Suppose 
the pastor of that crowd would have tried to put on 
a Soul-Winning Mission. Wouldn’t he have had 
some time a pulling them out of their ivory beds, 
and from those cozy couches? How would he ever 
have persuaded them to eat common food, get rid 
of their idle songs and sensual music, and put the 
good, old Gospel songs there instead? My! what a 
time he would have had of it. That bunch would 
not sing in the chorus choir. They wouldn’t attend 
prayer meetings. They wouldn’t do personal work. 
I would not have wanted his job. “They were not 
concerned nor grieved for the afflictions of Joseph.” 

2. The Cause. Every effect has a cause. So let 
us inquire the cause of this spiritual apathy. 

a. “They trusted in the mountain of Samaria.” 
The mountains would protect them. They felt an 
outward security without God. They didn’t need God. 
They were safe. There was adequate protection. 
There was the mountain. It stood as a defense be¬ 
tween them and the foe. They were “at ease in Zion.” 
There is no ease when there is danger of an outward 
attack. All is attention then. All is eagerness. The 
Pilgrims didn’t act like these folks. Neither did the 
Puritans, nor the pioneers. Gideon with his three 
hundred acted very differently. But then they were 
not trusting in the mountains. They were trusting 
in God and in the strength which God gave them. 
The real reason for that terrible effeminate condi¬ 
tion was that they felt safe and secure from enemies 
and therefore they abandoned themselves to idle¬ 
ness, pleasure and vice. 

b. “They put far away the evil day.” They also 


28 




TRUSTING IN THE MOUNTAINS 


had an inward security that was paralyzing to their 
spiritual selves. There was no anxiety nor care 
about their souls. But it was an inward security, 
without God, and without reason. There was no sen¬ 
sitive conscience there. No, no, it was seared long 
since. Death would come but not now. They didn’t 
want to think about it. There would be a judgment 
when they must give an account of their spiritual 
responsibility for service. There would come evil 
days but they were far away. What was the use in 
bothering about it now? There is a hell but don’t 
think about it. The evil day is the day of the Lord. 
They put it far away. Its thought was unwelcome. 

c. The seat of violence came near. They permit¬ 
ted violence. There was disregard for law. There 
was poor enforcement of laws. Judges were corrupt 
and inefficient. The people could not get justice 
through the courts so they took the law into their 
own hands. Things were in a terrible condition be¬ 
cause they trusted in the mountains. 

3. The Results. All the terrible consequence of 
their sinful conditions are expressed in one phrase. 
It is this: “They were not grieved for the afflictions 
of Joseph.” They lost their passion for souls. They 
cared not for the welfare of any one and they were 
so absorbed in self indulgence that they were un¬ 
conscious of the inevitable calamity and the terrible 
gap opening up between them. There was national 
paralysis. There was spiritual lethargy. They had 
missed the opportunity of their day. They brought a 
curse upon themselves and their prosperity. “They 
shall go captive with the first that go captive.” God 
took away from them their opportunity. They for¬ 
feited a chance to bless the world. 

4. Application. To the thoughtful student of 
our modern church life there are many things which 


29 





SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


seem very similar to the conditions in the days of 
Amos. We have a lot of church members who are at 
ease in Zion. They are not now and have not been 
doing any thing for Christ for years. Yet they don’t 
seem to be disturbed about their safety in this world 
or in the next. They seem to be trusting in some¬ 
thing that is as material as the mountain of Samaria. 
They are paying plenty of attention to their beds 
and couches. They are eating the very choicest 
things that money can buy. They patronize the 
moving picture shows and all sorts of amusement 
places. They are very much pleased with most any 
sort of entertainment. They have all sorts of clubs 
and parties galore. And they don’t seem to grieve 
much about the souls of men. These matters do not 
concern them. They are defeating the purposes of 
God in their own lives and in the lives of their chil¬ 
dren. These people in olden days found that God 
visited judgment upon them. Can we not be wise 
and learn from their failure ? 0, Church of God, let 
us foresake worldliness, and ease and let us put our 
trust in God and go forth in His name to battle and 
to victory. We have a great opportunity here in 
this mission to win souls for God. Let us do it. Let 
each one of us become aflame with passion for lost 
souls. Let us “go forth with weeping bearing 
precious seed, and we shall come again with rejoic¬ 
ing bringing our sheaves with us. “May God help 
us to give a good account of our time and energy 
during these days of great effort to win souls for 
Christ. May it never be said of this church that we 
are “at ease in Zion” that we “Trust in the mountain 
of Samaria” that we “put far away the evil day”, 
that we allow “the seat of violence to come near” 
and that we “are not grieved for the afflictions of 
Joseph.” 


30 






The Supreme Tragedy of the Church Member 

Text.—“He that putteth his hand to the plow and looketh 
back is not fit for the kingdom of God.”—Luke 9:62. 

•; AST night we were talking about “Trusting in 
•*— 1 the Mountains.” We saw how folks got into 
all kinds of trouble because they were “at ease 
in Zion.” We noticed how they forsook God Who 
is the very fountain of life, and placed their trust 
in broken cisterns that hold no water. I am sure 
there were many heart decisions that it shall never 
be said of us that we have not been faithful to God. 
We have come back to this church determined that 
if God will place confidence in us and responsibility 
upon us, we will not disappoint Him. We will guard 
the springs of life that they may bless all. Now 
the message this evening is upon the subject, “The 
Supreme Tragedy of the Church Member,” and the 
text is, “He that putteth his hand to the plow and 
looketh back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.” 
The supreme tragedy of the church member is not 
his temptation, not his sin but it is being made un¬ 
fit for the kingdom of God by choosing to remain 
in a state of sin. It is the abandonment of the eter¬ 
nal purpose of God for His life. It is the deliberate 
turning away from the mountain heights where he 
walks with God to the lower level of life where he 
voluntarily walks in the mire of sin. It is the volun¬ 
tary surrender of his heaven determined destiny. 
Now to be more explicit. When a person becomes a 
member of the church, he takes a solemn vow. Just 
like he does when he is made a citizen of this coun¬ 
try. If the citizen breaks his vow, he is a traitor. 
When persons are united in marriage, they take 


31 


SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


a solemn vow. If they break that vow, they com¬ 
mit adultery. When a man gives testimony before 
a court of justice, he takes an oath to tell the truth, 
the whole truth and nothing but the truth, etc. If 
he does not do so, he is guilty of perjury. Now 
treason, adultery and perjury are great sins against 
the state, the home and justice. But solemn as these 
vows are not one of them is as solemn as the one 
taken in church membership, nor are they as far 
reaching. For after declaring belief in God, the 
Father, in Jesus Christ, the Savior and in the Holy 
Spirit, the Guide, the candidate then solemnly says, 
“I renounce the devil and all his works and ways, and 
give myself to Thee the Triune God, Father, Son, and 
Holy Spirit in faith and obedience unto the end.” 
That is an eternal vow. Now for a person to take 
that vow before God and men and to repudiate it 
deliberately, and to abandon his publicly declared 
purpose to follow God, is to my mind the greatest 
tragedy of a human life. It seems hardly possible 
that any intelligent person should be guilty of such 
a sin as this. And yet it seems to be true that some 
folks have either committed it or are in grave danger 
of doing so. May God grant that his message may 
be a preventative as well as a remedy. We can put 
a prop under a weak limb of a tree and save it from 
breaking; but what can be done after it has been 
broken off? 

The situation is about like this in the home. 
Suppose there are ten children in this home. There 
is a large farm and lots of work to be done. The ex¬ 
pense of upkeep is very considerable but by thrift 
and co-operation it is all provided and the family is 
happy and contented. But by and by one quits be¬ 
cause he is offended, another because of jealousy, 
another because of pride, another becomes wayward* 


32 




THE TRAGEDY OF THE CHURCH MEMBER 


and another because of impurity and so on until there 
are only a few left. The glory of the home is gone. 
The love is gone out. No more happiness. The pro¬ 
perty is neglected for the lack of help. You say, 
“Why did they not adjust affairs in a satisfactory 
manner to all and keep the home intact and save the 
home and the hearts from breaking ?” It could have 
been done. It should have been done. Just apply 
this to the church family and see how many a church 
is broken up and the heart of Jesus broken afresh 
because of the conduct of church members in spite 
of the fact that such conduct is unnecessary. 

1. The apostate church member is a tragedy to 
himself. He forgets the injunction of Shakespeare, 
“This above all to thine own self be true, and thou 
canst not then be false to any man.” 

a. He breaks a covenant with God and man. 
Thus proving that morally he has collapsed. He has 
lost the dignity of manhood, and acts more like a 
jelly fish than a man. 

b. He does dishonor to the most solemn word of 
honor that he ever uttered. Failing here, how can 
men trust him in lesser things ? 

c. He breaks the golden cord of faith, blasts a 
noble purpose, crucifies his will, paralyzes his con¬ 
science and lies to the Holy Spirit. 

d. He either proves that he has never been con¬ 
verted and has thereby been living a deceitful, hypo¬ 
critical life, or that he has been deceived himself 
about his union with God, or 

e. He sins a sin for which there is no repen- 
tence as set forth in Hebrew 6:4-9. “For it is im¬ 
possible for those who were once enlightened, and 
have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made 
partakers of the Holy Ghost, and having tasted the 
good Word of God, and the powers of the world to 


33 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


come, if they fall away, to renew them again unto 
repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the 
Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame.” 
Hebrew 10:26-31, “For if we sin wilfully after that 
we have received knowledge of the truth, there re- 
maineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain look¬ 
ing for of judgment and fiery indignation, which 
shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ 
law died without mercy under two or three wit¬ 
nesses: Of how sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall 
he be thought worthy, who hath trodden underfoot 
the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the 
covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy 
thing, and hath done despite unto the spirit of 
Grace?—It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands 
of the living God.” 

2. The apostate church member is a tragedy to 
the church. Not alone is he personally involved, but 
the church of Christ also. The bride of Christ. The 
institution which God has placed here in the world 
to remind men of sin and to call them to Himself 
for salvation. 

a. He causes the church to be unjustly accused 
of weakness, of protecting hypocrites. He brings 
the church into a bad light by making her the sub¬ 
ject of contempt and suspicion. 

b. He by his actions keeps many people out of 
the church. He hurts the influence of the church in 
the community and in the world. For he is still 
recognized as a member and when he dies his folks 
will expect a Christian funeral service for him. 

c. He mocks the church by neglecting to attend 
services, by open defiance, and by showing personal 
contempt for high and holy ideals. That hurts the 
church like it hurts a mother to have her son say 


34 





THE TRAGEDY OF THE CHURCH MEMBER 


that she is disreputable, whether it is true or not. 
It is like calling’ a mother a prostitute. 

d. He would destroy the entire fabric of the 
organization of the church if his following were large 
enough. He would do this by his acts and words. 
But God sees to it that such persons have limited 
influence. 

e. He is a dead limb on a healthy tree. 

3. The apostate church member is a tragedy to 
Christ. Surely one of the saddest things in the life 
of Christ on earth must have been the denial of 
Peter and the betrayal by Judas. How His great 
yearning heart broke then when He saw men turn 
from Him. It breaks just the same way to-day when 
He sees unfaithful followers. He died of a broken 
heart. Why do we continue to crucify Him afresh ? 
To turn our backs upon the church is to turn our 
backs upon Christ. Christ and the church are one. 
He is the Head, the church is His Body. The church 
is His Bride. He wants to present His Bride before 
the Father, a glorious church, not having spot, or 
wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be 
whole and without blemish. To be unfaithful to Him 
and His church is to repeat the tragedy on Calvary. 

4. The apostate church member is a tragedy 
to humanity. It is a terrible manifestation of the 
weakness of the flesh. It shows how inconstant man 
is. It shows how unworthy he is of the Divine love 
of God. It shows how low a man can fall and how 
content he may be to lie down there. 

a. He is an example for other church members 
to follow him. Everbody has some following. 

b. And because of his hypocrisy, many people 
will never seek the church of Christ as a haven for 
their souls. 

c. He will be the cause of the wrath of God fall- 


35 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 




ing not only upon himself but upon members of his 
family and others. Their blood will be required at 
his hand; but neither shall they altogether escape 
for they have some light in the lives and teaching of 
faithful people. 

This sermon is not an indictment upon any one. 
It is a part of a pastor’s responsibility to preach the 
whole Word. It is the warning from the man on the 
watch tower who sees the enemy approaching. It is 
the flash of the passion of one who is trying to feed 
the flock of God, to tend to His sheep. It is a call 
of warning to prevent any one from betraying His 
Lord, and the call to any one who may be slipping 
away to come back home to God, to come back into 
the church, to return to faith and service. “Take 
heed lest any of you be hardened through the de¬ 
ceitfulness of sin.” We know what the will of God 
is in this matter. We know too how we stand with 
Him. We know God wants us to do His will. We 
know that He will help us if we will do our part. Now 
is our opportunity to do a really great work for God 
in the churches of this community. Let us line up 
solid for our faith. Let us get right with God our¬ 
selves, then we can teach transgressors the way. Let 
us put our hand to the plow and not even look back 
that we may be fit for the Kingdom of God. 


36 




Back to the Altar 


Text.—“And Abram went up out of Egypt unto the 
place of the altar, which he had made there at the first: And 
there Abram called on the name of the Lord.”—Genesis 13:14. 

ONE occasion, Jesus said to Simon Peter, 
“Launch out into the deep and let your net 
down for a draught.” Simon Peter hesitated a 
bit but he obeyed. The response was a great catch 
of fish, so many that the net broke. He was wonder¬ 
fully astonished at what happened when he obeyed 
Jesus Christ. It was the challenge of the deep to 
him. Simon learned that he need not be afraid to go 
out into the deep when Jesus commands and accom¬ 
panies him. But long, long before this, one of God’s 
greatest noblemen learned the same lesson. God 
told him to get out of the shallow waters of heathen¬ 
dom and to plunge into the depths of the great re¬ 
ligion of the true and living God. And like Simon 
Peter he also obeyed. And 0, what wonderful results 
followed. God asked Abram to do a hard thing. It 
was to separate himself from his native land, his 
father’s house and to sever the friendships of a life 
time growth. He told him to go to a land which He 
would show him. He told him that He would make 
him a great nation, that He would bless him and 
make his name great. Pie said, “I will bless them 
that bless thee, and curse him that curses thee and in 
thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” 
Abram obeyed the call of God. He came to Palestine. 
God appeared unto him there. And He erected an 
altar unto God and called upon His Holy name. 
Later on a famine came into that land. Abraham dis¬ 
trusted God. He went down into Egypt where he fell 


37 


SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


into sin. Then after a time he returned to the land 
of Palestine. He came to the place of the altar and 
called upon God. And God spoke to him again. 

1. We note how God finds men whom He wants 
in His service. God looks in unexpected places and 
selects very unlikely men to do His great work. The 
stuttering Moses, Amos the plowman, the shepherd 
David, the uncouth fisherman, Paul the persecutor, 
Lincoln the back woodsman, Carey the shoemaker, 
Luther, the miner’s son, Abrahm the son of an 
idolator. But there was a reason for calling these 
men as leaders in the great work of the Lord. These 
men had sparks in their souls that made it possible 
for God to strike His flint and kindle a flame. Some 
of the image and likeness of God are still there. 
There was a creative energy, a power to love and 
a passion to save. There was something in their 
lives which was recognized by Jehovah as of great 
worth in His service. To this something He 
would attach His infinite power. They had it in 
them to do something for God and the world. And 
they like iron filings were attracted to the magne¬ 
tism of the spiritual. 

2. God placed in this man’s soul a great spiritual 
passion. There are two. manifestations of human 
nature. One shows us to be in love with rest; the 
other shows us to be in love with motion. The one 
is backward looking toward experience, the other 
forward looking towards hopes. The one cautious, 
conservative; the other adventurous and radical. 
Caution lies forever amid the shadows, unblessing 
and unblessed. Faith, with obedience and enter¬ 
prise dares the unfathomable deep and reaps rich 
rewards. The soul of Abraham was connected with 
a Divine current that made him restless. So he 
followed a hope. “Going out not knowing whither he 


38 




BACK TO THE ALTAR 


went.” It was the call of the Spirit of God to his 
spirit. God placed in his soul a spiritual passion which 
caused him to separate from friends and wealth and 
land to follow that passion. The story is told of a 
lion cub that was reared with a flock of sheep. It 
seemed perfectly content to live with the sheep. 
They wandered at times far off into the native wild 
environment far from the sheltering’ fold, but the 
lion always came back with the sheep at eventime. 
But one day while out in the fields, he heard the 
roar of an old lion away off in the wilderness. He 
stopped and listened and with a mighty bound of 
terrific fierceness he abandoned the peaceful flock 
of sheep and with burning eyes joined himself to 
the lion. He heard the roar and it aroused all his 
primitive instincts. He responded to it. So did this 
deeply spiritual man respond to the spiritual call of 
God. The roar of the lion was irresistible. The call 
of God is also irresistible. Hear Jesus say to Phillip, 
“Follow Me.” He calls. His own hear His voice and 
follow where He leads. 

3. Abraham pursuing his soul passion. This 
God planted passion in his soul made Abraham so 
eager, so restless, so forward looking that he for¬ 
sook his country, his relatives, his friends, his moor¬ 
ings and followed it. He truly launched out into the 
deep. He went into an unchartered world. He knew 
not where he was going but God knew. He was just 
trusting in God. God told him that He would make 
him a great nation and a great blessing and Abra¬ 
ham believed Him, though he did not thoroughly 
understand it all. This was his dynamic. This was 
his driving power. His face was fixed towards life’s 
summit. He was happy in his great anticipation. 

The pursuit of his passion led him to the land 
of Palestine. Here at Bethel, he erected an altar un- 


39 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


to God. The altar is a meeting- place between God 
and man. Here he would call upon God and God 
would speak unto him. In this way his passion for 
God would be kept aflame. The Lord appeared fre¬ 
quently here. And wherever he went, he erected an 
altar unto the living God and worshipped Him. 

But there seemed to be one blot on the eschut- 
chion. One spot on his sun, one weak link in his 
chain, one shadow on his soul, a bit of dross in his 
gold. Wealth, comfort, material satisfaction, or 
greatness appeared to obscure his real objective. 
But the passion which God placed in his soul was 
not for wealth, flocks, herds, or children. So he had 
to be disillusioned. And that is always hard. So 
there were many trying experiences which came 
to him in Palestine. God had spoken about an 
inheritance for himself and his children. He never 
got it. The only land he ever owned was where 
he buried Sarah, his wife. Even the son was 
long delayed. He had a hard time of it with the 
inhabitants of that land—his neighbors. He had to 
give up many things. Then the famine came. This 
was the crisis. This was the dividing of the ways. 
Now the man will be tested. Which shall dominate 
the material or the spiritual ? Will he stay where God 
has placed him, or will he go where he need not 
suffer without God ? 0, the anxiety of it all. He is 
now out in God’s great deep. Will he stay there amid 
danger, toil and sacrifice? No, he seeks the shallow 
waters of ease, comfort and safety. 

4. Abram goes away from the altar. Here we 
see the humanity of the man. Here we see his free 
moral agency. God has honored him with power 
of choice in all these matters. He abandons his pas¬ 
sion. The spiritual back ground of his life almost 
disappears. He chooses material things instead of 


40 




BACK TO THE ALTAR 


spiritual. He goes into Egypt where he can have 
plenty to eat and gain more wealth. It is the old 
story of Esau selling his birthright for a mess of 
pottage. Esau had a good precedent for his sale. It 
is just like David killing a man that he might have 
the man’s wife to satisfy his passion for lust. He 
abandons the altar and turns his back on God. 

He went into Egypt. While he is down there, 
we have no record of him erecting altars, or calling 
upon God. Nor have we any record of God speaking 
to him. But we do have the record that he fell 
grieviously into sin. He told lies and he made money. 
He got very rich. He was pursuing the wrong pas¬ 
sion and he was using the power which God gave 
him in pursuing this wrong passion. He was misap¬ 
propriating divine power and genuis. God gave him 
power but he was using that power for himself and 
not for God. After awhile Pharaoh kicked him out 
of Egypt and compelled him to return home. “God 
moves in a mysterious way His wonders to per¬ 
form.” God used Pharoah to set Abram right. 

5. Abram comes back to the Altar. “And 
Abram went up out of Egypt unto the place of the 
altar, even unto Bethel.” He came back to the place 
where he had at the first called upon God. He had 
to begin all over again. There he called upon God. 
There God spoke to him again. There he found the 
lost chord. There at the altar he found his passion 
for God. After twenty-five years of unattainment 
and more or less misunderstanding, the Lord spoke 
to him and said, “Do not be afraid Abraham, I am 
thy exceeding great reward—not flocks, not herds, 
not land, not children, but I am thy exceeding great 
reward. It is a spiritual and not a material conquest 
to which I have called you.” And again he believed 
God. He found that he could live, and desire, and 


41 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


aspire after things which could not be bought and 
sold. A heavenly discovery. Now the man realizes 
what God wants him to do. He has at last found 
the meaning of God’s call, and the longings of his 
soul. 

He was content to be a pilgrim and a stranger 
all the rest of his days in a land which had been pro¬ 
mised to him as an inheritance. He had now learned 
to look for a city whose Maker and Builder is God. 
He is a different man now. See him so graciously 
practicing the presence of God in his life in his 
dealings with Lot. See him willing to offer Isaac on 
the Altar. Yes, he came back to the Altar. Once 
more the passion of God burned in his soul. 

Can it be that we have lost our passion for 
souls? Has that divinely given passion been sub¬ 
merged in the ocean of materialism? Have we got 
a vision of men and women saved? Have we got a 
vision of them even seeking salvation ? Don’t let us 
be discouraged. Here at the Altar of God, let us 
hear the call, renew our vision, rekindle our passion, 
and go on for God. Abraham never went away from 
the Altar again. Once was enough for him. God 
kept him faithful until his bones were laid by the 
side of Sarah in the cave of Machpelah. Christ calls 
to-night. If away from the Altar will you not re¬ 
turn ? Come on back from Egypt. Come back, even 
unto Bethel where you used to get your inspiration. 
Let us go away from this Altar this night with our 
hearts all aflame for God and for the souls of men. 


42 




Conviction 


Why Doesn t God Kill the Devil? 

Text.—“And the angels which kept not their first estate, 
but left their own habitation, He hath reserved in everlast¬ 
ing chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great 
day.”—Jude 6. 

A S AN approach to this subject I want to state a 
number of well known and indisputable facts 
concerning- spiritual fundamentals, 
a. God is. This is the first teaching concerning 
our Holy Religion. We cannot get any where until 
we believe that God exists. He not only exists but 
He is the Creator of the world, of man, of heaven 
and of the angels. God Himself is a Spirit uncreat¬ 
ed and perfect. Man is a created spirit, able to know, 
to feel and to will. His body was made of the dust 
of the earth and his spirit came from God Who 
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man 
became a living soul. The angels are created spirits 
and differ from men only that they dwell not on the 
earth and have not bodies made of flesh hence do 
not have human limitations. It is God’s will that 
both angels and man shall worship Him and fulfill 
His commands and abide with Him forever. 

b. The Devil is. There is no question of the 
reality of the existence of the devil. And there is 
no question about his personality. He appears to be 
a fallen angel, and yet angels must have been tested 
like men for “God spared not the angels that sinned 
but cast them down to hell and delivered them into 


43 



SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


chains of darkness to be reserved unto the judg¬ 
ment.” Not only were they tested but the Word of 
God says some of them fell. But the fallen angels 
do not seem to have another chance as man has. On 
this point we have no revelation, nor need it concern 
us. The devil is condemned to eternal banishment 
from the presence of God. He represents all the pow¬ 
ers of evil in this world. His known purpose is to 
oppose the will of God and to tempt men to evil. 

c. The destiny of men and angels. Both were 
created free moral agents with the ability to know, 
to feel and to will. The power to love, to hate, to 
think and to act was given to both. Thus were rest¬ 
ed upon them moral and spiritual responsibility. The 
men who choose Jesus Christ as their Lord and 
Master have eternal life as their destiny. (Greek 
word is “aionion zoan”). The same would be true 
of the angels. The men who choose the devil for 
their master have for their destiny everlasting pun¬ 
ishment. (“aionion kolasin”) Same is true of the 
angels again. I want you to note that if there is 
no eternal punishment there is no eternal life, for the 
same words are used to qualify both life and punish¬ 
ment. Here is an unanswerable argument for those 
who are deceived by the teaching of the annihilation 
of the wicked. 

d. The Fall of man. In the fall, man yielded 
to the temptation of the devil, distrusted and dis¬ 
obeyed God, but he trusted and obeyed the devil. He 
chose the devil rather than God for his master of 
his own free will. Since that time the devil has 
been so successful in deceiving men that he is called 
by our Saviour the prince of this world. He has got 
such a following here among men, who obey and 
trust him that they constitute an organization of 
such formidable power that it is called a kingdom. 


44 




WHY DOESN’T GOD KILL THE DEVIL? 


In fact by that first act of deception and the volun¬ 
tary yielding on the part of our first parents in the 
Garden of Eden the flood gates were opened and the 
devil entered into our race bringing sin and death. 
‘‘For by one man sin entered into the world and 
death by sin.” And now our natural state is one of 
sin and misery. There is an inborn depravity due 
to his influence which renders us unable to do good 
and inclines us to do evil. “I find then a law, when 
I would do good, evil is present with me, The good 
that I would I do not, and the evil that I would not 
do, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is 
no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” 
There are three things which convince us on this 
point. They are the holy commandments of God, our 
own conscience, and the lives of regenerated men. 

e. God’s Call to men. Man went away from 
God through the gate way of disobedience, mistrust 
and unbelief. God has been calling him to come 
back home. But he must come back through the 
gates by which he went out and the sign on the out¬ 
side reads obedience, belief and trust. God says, 
“Obey.” Satan says, “Disobey.” Thus the battle is 
waged in the soul of man. The other night we spoke 
of Christ coming into the world, entering into the 
stronghold of satan, binding him and taking his 
spoils, and offering man a chance to step out into 
freedom. Now tonight we want to tell you why He 
didn’t kill him when He had him bound. The ques¬ 
tion is a very practical one. You are interested in 
it or there would not be such a large crowd here. If 
the devil is the cause of all our sin, and misery and 
final separation from God, why doesn’t God kill him 
and save us all this trouble? At first thought we 
might say, “Christ ought to have killed him.” We 
think we would have done so to such an arch enemy 


45 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


to the race. Historical facts let some light in on this 
killing business. Kings used to do that in order to 
eliminate enemies. But it never worked very satis¬ 
factory. So here there are reasons why God does 
not kill the devil. 

1. The Reasons: 

a. Because God is able to save us from the 
devil's power. There is a greater manifestation of 
Grace in saving from the enemy than in killing 
the enemy. Greater mercy is shown here and 
greater love. 

b. Because God has created us free moral beings 
and we must therefore have a choice in the selection 
of our master. An idiot cannot choose. God has not 
made us idiots but thinking, responsible men. It is 
a compliment to man that God trusts him to choose 
his destiny. The race is honor d and dignified. It 
shows faith in us. It shows love for us. Would you 
like to have the power of choice removed? That 
would rob you of your manhood, wouldn’t it? That 
is what would happen if God killed the devil. 

c. Because God would have to create another 
devil to take his place. The moral universe demands 
an opposite to the good. That is evil. We have light 
and we have its opposite, darkness. We have heaven 
and we have its opposite, hell. If there is reward 
for good there must also be punishment for evil. 
Satan involves not only the reality of the existence 
of evil but its culmination as well. We find in our 
courts and jails, and penal institutions the reason 
for the existence of a place of punishment. Hell is 
the penitentiary of the universe. 

d. Because the devil is a spirit and spirits can¬ 
not be destroyed. 

e. Because the devil is reserved for eternal pun¬ 
ishment. 


46 




WHY DOESN’T GOD KILL THE DEVIL? 


2. God does not kill but only binds the devil. But 
binding- is equivalent to killing for the man who steps 
out on the side of Christ. God makes it possible for 
him to escape, to be free. That is all a man can 
ask—just a chance to be free. What more can a 
healthy red-blooded man ask than just such a 
chance? Is it not enough in other spheres of life 
just to have a chance, to get an education, to have 
health, a job, wealth, happiness, a home? Then it 
is up to us to make good. You admire the man who 
takes his chance and makes good. You despise the 
man who refuses to take his chance and fails. 

3. God’s great act of mercy is here revealed. God 
has done His part. Jesus came to us and bound 
the strong one. Now we must prove our manhood. 
It will now appear if there is really any thing in us 
worth while. Now we must act. We must choose 
and determine our own fate. Remember it is not 
the will of God that any one should perish. He has 
gone as far as He can with us without robbing us 
of our manhood. He has opened the door and point¬ 
ed the way. He has struck the shackles from us. 
The door of the prison house is open. What is the 
sensible thing to do ? Will you step out in the liberty 
of the people of God? Will you do it now? Will 
you take the first step tonight? All you need is to 
desire the better life, then summon your courage 
and will power, let Jesus take you by the hand and 
lead you out. Come now, let us settle this matter 
tonight. You have had enough of satan. We are not 
asking you to go all the way tonight, but just to 
look where freedom is. Just to take the first step. 
Then we want you to look about you for awhile to 
get adjusted to your new Master and your freedom. 
Then we want you to help these meetings by getting 
your friends to come here and catch your vision. 


47 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


That is why we are asking you to take instruction 
for five or six nights and complete your work at 
Easter. This is only fair to you and the church. 


48 




The Greatest Sin in Princeton 

Text.—“And Gallio cared for none of those things.” 

—Acts 18:17. 


VY/E SEE what we are looking- for in this world. 

W We g-et just about what we want, and we be¬ 
come very like the persons or things which we 
think most about. A young preacher on the eve 
of his ordination was walking down the streets of 
Williamsport, Pa., with a man and his wife. The 
man was an admirer of automobiles, the lady was in¬ 
terested in flowers and the preacher was not yet 
married. The man said, “Isn’t that a wonderful car 
over there?” The lady said, “Did you ever see such 
beautiful flowers as those in yonder garden?” and 
the young preacher said, “Do you see that charm¬ 
ing young maid sitting on that wide veranda?” Each 
saw what they were looking for. Two young men 
came into the city of Scranton, Pa. for their first 
trip. They walked down the street together. One 
of them saw a dude with a cane, a monocle, a silk 
hat and a cigarette. He thought in his heart I would 
like to be like that. The other one saw a neat little 
home with a beautiful young mother sitting on the 
porch cooing to a young child. He said, “that is 
what I want some day.” Time passed and the one 
became a dude and the other had his cozy home with 
the wife and baby too. They got exactly what they 
wanted. It was said of Michael Angelo that when he 
produced his masterpiece of sculpture, “David”, the 
change which took place in the artist’s face startled 
even his friends. He became so much like the thing 
he thought so much about. 

A good marksman hits the thing he aims at. A 


49 


SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


boy went with his father to hunt quail. He shot sev¬ 
eral times and got none. His father brought one 
down every time he shot. The boy thought there 
was something wrong with his gun. He exchanged 
with his father but the results were the same. Then 
the father asked him how he was doing it. He re¬ 
plied, “When they fly up, I try to shoot the whole 
covey.” The father directed him to single out one of 
the flock and aim at it. Then he succeeded in bag¬ 
ging several. The same thing is true in seeking a 
wife. You get along better when you select one and 
concentrate on that one. It is true when great bat¬ 
tles are to be fought. The campaign always has an 
objective point. And it is equally true in fighting sin. 
We show wisdom when we single out the sin and 
attack it vehemently. All sin is terrible, but there 
are some sins which are deadlier than others. If 
these are met and dealt with so that they are 
utterly driven from our lives, the lesser ones will 
often go with them. We want to locate the posi¬ 
tion of the strongest forces of satan and hurl our 
united force against them. We want to learn the 
sins which he is using most effectively to destroy 
life and then attack them and counter attack them 
until their power and influence is destroyed. To this 
end we must locate, and recognize the sin and strike 
hard with the help of Jesus Christ. Sin is every thing 
contrary to the will of God. There are sins of com¬ 
mission and sins of omission. The things which we 
have not done which God made it possible for us to 
do will condemn us as well as the things we have 
done which God tells us not to do. God remembers 
the sin. He never forgets. It is always present with 
Him. Man may forget it, but God never forgets it 
until it is washed away by the blood of Christ. Then 
He remembers it no more. That sin of yours may 


50 




THE GREATEST SIN IN PRINCETON 


have been committed twenty-five years ago. You 
have forgotten it probably. You think other folks 
have anyway. But I tell you this night God still re¬ 
members that sin. It has been getting bigger and 
bigger all the time like the ever widening circle in 
the pond. But God through Jesus Christ is willing to 
pardon the sin and He is able to blot it out forever. 
So we must concern ourselves about our sins. And 
we want to attack the greatest ones first. 

The greatest sin in the world is unbelief. That 
is to refuse to accept Jesus Christ as the Redeemer 
and Saviour. Being the greatest sin there follows 
in its trail the greatest penalty—eternal banishment 
from the presence of God. “He that believeth and 
is baptised shall be saved, but he that believeth not 
shall be dammed.” All our sins come from this 
greatest sin. You may call the awful roll from infan¬ 
ticide to Deicide and they all originate in unbelief. 
But I want to speak tonight not so much about the 
greatest sin of the world as about the greatest sin in 
Princeton. And yet we must know what the great¬ 
est sin in the world is and be able to meet it or we 
can’t meet the greatest sin in Princeton. 

1. The greatest sin in Princeton. I am using 
this term so as to direct your attention to a sinful 
condition which obtains so very generally in our city 
and community that it must be removed before we 
can hope to accomplish anything for the cause of 
Christ. 

a. It is not taking the Name of God in vain. 
Though that is a great and common enough sin. 
God has forbidden it. “Thou shalt not take the name 
of the Lord Thy God in vain.” God remembers every 
oath. Why should men swear? They might offer 
at least a poor excuse for lying or stealing but none 
for swearing. This is sin but not our greatest. 


51 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


b. It is not gambling. Though here is a sin, in¬ 
deed. And there is far too much of it. It saps the 
red corpuscle and iron from men’s blood. Removes 
from men their hard earned money and often leaves 
innocent ones to suffer. Takes away the principle of 
self reliance. Leaves a desire to get something for 
nothing, teaches shiftlessness. Don’t try to get your 
neighbor’s money without value received. Be fair. 
Go out and dig in the ditch if need be. Get honest 
wages. Honor that part of your life which you 
spend for money. 

c. It is not the desecration of the Lord’s Day. 
This is pretty common sin in our city. It is forbid¬ 
den by God. ‘‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it 
Holy.” It is God’s day. A holy day. It is not yours. 
You have no right to use it as you please unless you 
please to use it for the glory of God. 

d. It is not intemperance. This sin has left an 
awful trail of blood and crime in its train. The flood 
gates have been closed but the battle is not all over. 
Wife and family are still suffering. Souls are still 
being lost through it. 

e. It is not the social evil. God only knows how 
black and treacherous this sin is. How it is ruining 
and blasting forever the lives of young men and 
women. 

THE GREATEST SIN IN PRINCETON IS IN¬ 
DIFFERENCE TO SPIRITUAL REALITIES. It 
is unconcern, carelessness, lack of interest and anxie¬ 
ty in God and in the welfare of souls. This stupe¬ 
fying lethargy caused by satanic presence and in¬ 
fluence results in soul destroying sin, of which the 
victim oft times is wholly unconscious. And what is 
still worse he refuses to accept the diagnosis of the 
expert Physician. 

a. The Scripture declaration. “In as much as 


52 




THE GREATEST SIN IN PRINCETON 


ye did it not,” says Jesus. They had the opportunity. 
They could have done it. They would not. “They 
began with one consent to make excuse.” They were 
invited. They could have come. They would not. 
“Gallio cared for none of those things.” He would 
not. Jerusalem could have been gathered but she 
would not. These people could have given bread to 
the hungry, they could have come to the wedding 
feast, Gallio could have cared, but they would not. 
They believed but they were indifferent. They had 
no interest. They were not concerned. The thing 
did not seem as important to them as some other 
things which were before them at that time. Some 
one says, “I never thought of indifference being the 
greatest sin in Princeton.” Another says, “I never 
thought of it being a sin at all.” Ah! How very 
subtle has been this device of satan. That is what 
he wants to do. He wants us to have a sin, a damn¬ 
ing sin in our midst which we do not recognize as a 
sin at all. 

b. Let the church speak. Why are you not more 
active in the service of the church. The final ans¬ 
wer will always come back, “Because of indifference.” 
0, I know many try to evade the real cause by giving- 
other excuses, just like those people the Bible told 
us about. They tell us, “We are too busy. (But we 
always have plenty of time to do the things we want 
to do). We don’t like the preacher. There are too 
many hypocrites in the church. But the real reason 
is because they are indifferent. Why don’t people 
who believe step out on the side of Christ and help 
win others to Him? I know the reason. You wiggle 
and twist and make excuse after excuse, but when 
you face the facts you will admit your real and only 
reason is that YOU DO NOT CARE. 

c. In other spheres than the church. Apply this 


53 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


same principle to your business, your lodge, your 
home. It gets the same results. Indifference will 
kill any organization. Better a thousand times have 
the most bitter opposition than indifference. It 
deadens the conscience. The best way to kill any 
movement is to ignore it. How about it, boys? A 
love wave is started and she ignores and shuns you. 
The thing that keeps any movement alive is interest 
—either favorable or unfavorable. Sometimes the 
people who knock the preacher and the church help 
the church far more than if they tried to help. 

2. What is the cause of Indifference? There are 
probably three things which contribute to this con¬ 
dition. 

a. Indifference is a stupefying faction sent 
direct from satan and injected into the lives of men 
to keep them from being susceptible to the call of 
conscience and of God to the great spiritual realities. 
It is an hyperdermic injection of a serum of sin 
which causes an unconscious condition of soul re¬ 
garding sin and its effects so that just like going un¬ 
der the influence of opium there are delightful sen¬ 
sations soon to be followed by harmful results. 

b. Materialistic views of life cause indifference. 
Men will so absorb this sort of stuff until they lose 
their sensitiveness of perception regarding the deep¬ 
er spiritual things. 

c. Continued indulgence in the practice of mild 
sins will soon lead to indifference. 

3. What is the remedy for Indifference? 

a. There must first be an interest awakened in 
the welfare of the soul and in other souls. There 
must be personal concern. Each one must realize 
that his life is of value. It is too precious to be 
ruined by neglect. If we are worth enough to bring 
Jesus Christ from Heaven to earth to seek us and 


54 




THE GREATEST SIN IN PRINCETON 


to die for us, we ought to care what happens to us. 
To know the real value of a soul and its enemies 
and its dangers should help to get rid of Indifference. 

b. There must be a deep conviction of sin. We 
must see sin as a fact. A calamitous fact. A per¬ 
sonal fact. We must realize that we are sinners and 
admit it. 

c. To get rid of Indifference we must see our 
lives in the light of Calvary. 

d. We must see our need of a Savior. Jesus is 
that Savior. When we will allow Him to comeTnto 
our lives, we will have the remedy. Jesus is the 
remendy and the only remedy for this sin. “There 
is none other name under Heaven given among men 
whereby we must be saved.” 


55 




Easy Religion 

Text.—“Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two 
calves of gold, and said unto them, it is too much for you to 
go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, () Israel which brought 
thee up out of the land of Egypt.”—1 Kings 12:28. 

J EROBOAM would be popular to day. There are lots 
of folks who are ready for such religious food as 
l^e offered to his people. Such words as toil, exer¬ 
tion,' labor, struggle, travail, suffer, sacrifice and re¬ 
sponsibility-—these sterner words and all that they 
stand for—are fast losing their popularity among 
folks. They are calling and clamoring with consider¬ 
able emphasis for softer words such as rest, ease, 
repose, quiet, comfort, retirement, content, enjoy¬ 
ment—these words and what they mean are the 
popular words. In every walk of life there seems to 
be a tendency to find and to adopt the easy ways of 
doing things. Easy methods are much in demand. 
We note the easy methods of modern transportation, 
the easy methods of labor. The work of the farm, 
the office, the home is vastly easier than it was a 
generation ago. We are thankful that it is. That is 
a blessing from God. We note there are easy meth¬ 
ods of earning a living. We are perfectly willing to 
allow somebody else do the job that requires hard 
work. We will look for the soft snap. There are 
easy methods of learning. We read in the magazines 
how you can get a four year high school course in two 
years. Learn nursing at home. Easy ways of getting 
wealth are advertised. And there are easy methods 
announced for getting back lost health. And when it 
comes to entertainment, the easy method is very 
prominent. Here we are offered our choice, victrola, 
moving picture, or radio. So we are not at all sur- 


56 


EASY RELIGION 


prised to hear of easy religion. Folks are caught in 
the grip of softness. They seem to ignore entirely 
the teaching of God’s word. In 1 Cor. 6:9 Paul 
says: “The effeminate shall not inherit the kingdom 
of God.” The word used is “Malakos” and means 
soft. It probably refers to people who are given to 
soft, easy, and luxuriant living. The people who re¬ 
fuse to endure hardship and decline to bear a cross, 
who always want to lie on feathers. They want to 
“be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, while 
others fight to win the prize and sail through bloody 
seas.” This easy religion is not new. It is as old as 
the tower of Babel. Away back there they tried 
to find an easy way to heaven. They tried to find an 
easy way to safety and protection. 

1. Jeroboam’s “Golden Calves.” The ten tribes 
went out on a strike. They followed a spirited leader. 
They went out from Rehoboam and declared their 
allegiance to Jeroboam. This man had genius. He 
was a constructor. He built a great city—the city of 
Schechem in Mt. Ephraim and he dwelt therein. 
But in doing all this and asking the people to come 
along and to remain with him he severed many ties 
of sacred relationship. Foremost among which was 
the religious tie. These people had a spiritual back 
ground which was not easy to obliterate. This king 
was wise enough to detect this. He was conscious of 
the strong religious tug in the peoples’ lives. He knew 
how they would obey the impulse to return sooner 
or later. And he knew that if they returned to wor¬ 
ship they would stay there. They would unite them¬ 
selves with Rehoboam and probably return and kill 
him. So he talked this thing over. He took counsel. 
He studied the situation and this was his conclu¬ 
sion. He would feed their religious desire with a 
substitute. 


57 





SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


a. He would set up the golden calves in their 
midst. He would make them easy of access. He 
would appeal to a very sensitive weakness in them 
as well as in most men. He would say, “Now you 
people work so hard and are so busy all the time. It 
is too much for you to spend the time, money, and 
energy to go up to Jerusalem. Of course it is nice 
to go. And it would be all right to go up some time. 
But out of our love for you and our concern for your 
spiritual interests we will have a worship of our 
own right here at home.” He was a pretty wise man. 
He understood human nature. He knew the neces¬ 
sity of religion to make people good and contented 
citizens far better than some of our modern states¬ 
men do. So up went the calves, one in Bethel, the 
other in Dan. 

b. He would make an order of priests. The 
people would at once ask for the priest. “We will 
take care of that all right.” Now how did he meet 
this need? “He made priests of the lowest of the 
people which were not of the sons of Levi.” Why 
did he take such people? Well, the better people 
would not do such religious things. 

c. He ordained a feast. He knew the people 
would demand it. He wanted to fix it all up as well 
as he could. So he made the feast, like the one in 
Judah. He had an altar. He offered sacrifice. He 
copied every thing after the real religion. He did 
just like our modern heretics do. Here is a good illus¬ 
tration of easy religion. Here is a good attempt to 
imitate religion. A substitute and a counterfeit re¬ 
ligion but it merits just one comment. “He made 
Israel to sin.” What an indictment! 

2. Some Pulpits are encouraging Easy Religion. 
There are many preachers in our pulpits in this age 
who differ little from the ideals of Jeroboam. 


58 




EASY RELIGION 


a. Preachers are substituting a social gospel for 
the genuine Gospel of Christ. They are saying that 
what people need is not religion so much as a better 
environment. Give them parks, playgrounds, more 
money, better homes and thej^ will develop into bet¬ 
ter characters. They say just educate them. Scien¬ 
tific culture will do the job. Self improvement is 
salvation. All this is but offering stones for bread. 
It is setting up the calves all over again. The people 
need to go to Jerusalem. They need the old fashion¬ 
ed Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

b. Preachers are using sensational subjects to 
lure the people to their pews. Topics of the day are 
announced as themes. Literary and scientific treat¬ 
ises are offered as substitutes for Gospel sermons. 
When we were in SanFrancisco a few years ago, a 
noted preacher announced that on Sunday he would 
preach on the subject, “When you were a tadpole and 
I was a fish.” Just Jeroboam’s Calves. 

c. Imitating the amusement world. There are 
many modern churches which are imitating the 
amusement world. They introduce all kinds of en¬ 
tertaining specialities even at the sacred hours of 
worship. Moving pictures, and clownish perform¬ 
ances are used to compete with the amusement 
places. Easy religion again. Up-to-date calves. 

d. Winking at the sins of Society. Many of the 
common sins of modern society are passed by unno¬ 
ticed from our pulpits because prominent people in¬ 
dulge in them. If they were denounced the people 
would not attend the church services. So in order 
to ease their consciences these sins are winked at. 
Just imitation preaching. That is all. 

3. Many Pews are demanding Easy Religion. 
We are not going to lay all the blame on the preach¬ 
ers. For people get about what they want in this 


59 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


world. And they get about the kind of preaching 
they are willing to listen to in a great many cases. 
If they want the good old Gospel and will come out 
to hear it, most preachers will give it to them. 
But if they will not come to hear the Gospel in its 
purity at least some preachers will give them the 
thing that will give them an audience. Just be sure 
of that. 

a. Church is just a part of the social life. For 
some church members that is about all it means. 
They come to show their nice clothes or their arti¬ 
ficial “make ups”, to satisfy their wunderlust, or to 
gossip a bit. These people want a very mild and 
much diluted gospel, and they want it in their midst, 
not up in Jerusalem. 

b. Sinful members. Some church members are 
living in open sin. They do not want these sins de¬ 
nounced, for they love them. They are their pets. 
If the preacher insist that these sins shall be aban¬ 
doned and the sinners repent and seek forgiveness 
and go and do these things no more; they resent 
it all. They want a double standard of life. They 
like that sort of thing. This Bible kind of morality 
and religion was all right for their mothers but it is 
entirety too slow for them. 

c. Lots of our members want to be Christians 
without Christ. Some folks want to be Christians 
without even uniting with the church. They want 
to avoid all criticism and responsibility. They live 
on the fence so they can get with either crowd that 
comes along. Church tramps who will not tie up to 
any church. There are a few of that kind in our 
town. I have met them. Easy religion is their 
hobby. 

d. Members but not workers. Some like to be¬ 
long to a church but do not want to work in any of 


60 




EASY RELIGION 


the departments of the church. Just want to sit. 
It would be all right if they would sit where the 
preacher wants them to sit but they will not even 
do that. These church members who are demanding 
easy religion are just like the preachers who offer an 
easy religion; they cause Israel to sin. 

4. People are practicing Easy Religion. Here 
we see easy religion in its actual working out. 

a. In the home. The line of least resistance is 
followed in far too many of our American homes. Let 
us open many of our homes and what do we see? No 
family altar, no blessing at the table, no Bible study. 
We ask why these practices of religious nurture have 
been discontinued. The answer is, “It is too hard 
to keep them up. We simply cannot adjust our 
modern home to these things.” What they really 
mean is that they are practicing an easy religion. 

b. Church attendance. There are many church 
members who find regular attendance upon Divine 
worship a difficult task. So they come only occa- 
sionaly. They want to belong to the church but do 
not want to give much time to it. The same thing 
is true of money and energy. 

c. Fraternal organizations. These claim many 
of our church members. They are easy religions. 
Many folks use them for substitutes for the church. 
So the people go to Bethel and to Dan for it is easier 
than to go to Jerusalem. They accept the substitute. 

5. The Devil offers Easy Religions. He is a past 
master in this art. 

a. There is Christian Science, Russelism, Unitar- 
ianism, Universalism, New Thought and what not? 
These are calves which he sets up and says to folks. 
“It is too hard for you to hold the old fashioned faith. 
Here are your gods. Worship them.” He very cun¬ 
ningly sets forth counterfeits of the true religion. 


61 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


He imitates the services as really as Jeroboam did. 

b. People who are not warmly attached to the 
Church of the living God become fruitful soil for 
easy religions. But those who are all aflame in their 
zeal for God are secure. A fly doesn’t light on a hot 
stove. 

6. Jesus Rebuked Easy Religion. In a most 
wonderful way He tore Himself from the grip of soft¬ 
ness and endured hardness as a good soldier. 

a. He chose the way of the cross. By His own 
life HE is an example for us. He was thrice tempted 
to take some other way. But no, Calvary was His 
destination. No easy religion for Him. 

b. He said, “Deny thyself, take up thy cross and 
follow Me.” Nothing easy about those require¬ 
ments. 

c. He never compromised in regard to doctrines. 
He never said to the moral leper, “If you don’t like 
the doctrine about hell, I will take it away.” 

d. The early followers of Jesus didn’t know any 
easy religion. Peter, Paul and the others. Only 
hardness can make great souls like them. 

e. Easy Religion fails. It cannot connect men 
and women with the real springs of power. No man 
was ever made strong against non-resistance. The 
oak tree is our example. See old Gideon as he cries, 
“Give me my mountain.” Christianity is not a single 
experience. It is a Way, a Life, a Warfare. It is a 
hard way. It takes strength. The man who swears, 
drinks or lies and quits it all must needs be strong. 
The man who is tempted and does not yield is strong. 
Easy religion does not give him that strength. Any 
fool can follow an easy religion but it takes all the 
strength of the strongest man plus the strength of 
Christ to follow the true religion of the Son of God. 
It takes strength and courage and resolution to fol- 


62 




EASY RELIGION 


low the way of Christ. The Gospel calls are to hard¬ 
ship, sacrifice and battle. Christ calls us to cam¬ 
paign,.not to comfort. It requires strong characters 
to follow Christ. It has always been that way. The 
soft soon fall away. Christ calls to us to follow Him 
“through peril, toil and pain.” Let us all answer that 
call by saying, “Lord, Jesus, we are ready for 
service.” 




63 




The Call of the Unsaved 

Text.—“Come over into Macedonia and help us.”—Acts 16:9. 

T HIS TEXT is a bit of the experience of the great 
Apostle to the gentiles. This man was called 
of God to do a specific work in the Kingdom. 
And 0, the romance of that life. How our emotions 
are stirred as we follow him along his eventful way. 
He was to carry the Gospel to those who were out¬ 
side of the Jewish nation. And He carried it with 
enthusiasm. He went ae it like a man who was look¬ 
ing for lost souls. He worked just as hard for souls 
as some folks do for dollars, or fame. He was driven 
by that restlessness which is characteristic of fully 
consecrated souls. The Spirit of God was in him. 
He had a passion for saving the lost which was akin 
to the Master for Whose sake he gave all his mind, 
all his heart and all his strength and all his soul. 
Paul was active. Paul’s activity was constructive 
in the Kingdom of God. Paul preserved the results 
of his activity through the help of Christ. He was 
no barren fig tree. He was no idler in the vineyard. 
He never sold his birthright. He invested it in soul 
winning bonds under the direction of Jesus Christ. 
He was a veritable whirlwind for God. When he 
struck a town and turned the Gospel light on men’s 
lives, it was just like lifting a stone which had lain 
for a long time undisturbed and letting the sunlight 
in—all kinds of ugly worms, bugs, and other creep¬ 
ing and crawling things scampered away seeking 
some other shelter in the darkness of seclusion. 
Wicked men trembled when Paul approached. Paul 
is now making a visit to establish churches in the 
faith. He is now preserving the results of his con- 


64 


THE CALL OF THE UNSAVED 


structive activity. He is also increasing- the num¬ 
ber of Christians daily. He is putting on a great 
soul-winning mission. They had finished their work 
in Phrygia and Galatia. Then he wanted to go to 
Asia. But God said, “No, I don’t want you to go 
there.” Then they came to Mysia and they wanted 
to go to Bythinia. But the Spirit said, “No,” again. 
Then they came to Troas. And here Paul saw a vis¬ 
ion in the night. Some people are all the time work¬ 
ing where God does not want them to work. Even 
Paul had to take his orders from the Holy Spirit. 
In this vision, there stood a man of Macedonia and 
he prayed him that he would come over into Mace¬ 
donia and help them. After Paul saw that vision, 
they endeavored to go into Macedonia assuredly be¬ 
lieving that the Lord had called them to preach the 
Gospel there. They saw the vision first and then 
they went to work. 

1. God’s work. One of the first things that we 
must learn is that saving souls is God’s work, win¬ 
ning souls is God’s work. We must wait for our 
orders from Him. If we place ourselves under the 
direction of the Holy Spirit, He will indicate our 

' fields of service. He will send us to the people whom 
He has prepared for us to lead to Christ. God wise¬ 
ly plans the campaign. We need lots of conferences 
with God on our knees in our closets before we have 
conferences with men in the offices and on the street. 
That is the secret of soul-winning. Some never wait 
for God to prepare the way and they always fail. 
There is a Macedonia for us when there is not an 
Asia or a Bythinia. But some will insist on working- 
in Asia in spite of the Spirit’s objections. 

2. The Call of the Unsaved. I believe God 
wants every Christian to be a soul winner. I believe 
there is some one calling to every one of us. I believe 


65 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


these calling ones are in our own community, in our 
homes and not in some far off land. I believe they 
can only be seen from God’s view point and if we get 
close enough to Him we can see them too as He does. 
At the cross, we can get a vision of the unsaved who 
want to be saved and who want us to lead them to 
God. If we go to the right people, God being with 
us we can lead those people to Him. If we go to 
the wrong people we must fail. It is therefor very 
important that we wait on the leadership of the 
Lord. 

Every unsaved person is calling to Christians to 
come and help them. I know it does not appear so. 
There is every appearance of indifference. “How 
many of you men are married? Let me see your 
hands. You don’t need to be ashamed of it. Do 
you remember the night you proposed marriage to 
that young lady? You were a bit nervous I think. 
Do you remember how very indifferent she acted? 
Hasn’t she told since that she was just dying to 
have you ask her, afraid all the time that you were 
not going to do it?” Every normal girl expects some¬ 
body to propose marriage to her at some time, “Don’t 
you, girls?” You understand me, I am sure. And 
do not be discouraged about the apparent indiffer¬ 
ence. A lady asked me the other night if I thought 
there was any use in trying to get a certain man into 
the church. I said, “Why not, he is human?” You 
might just as well have a young man say, “Do you 
think there is any use in asking this young girl to 
marry me?” Why not? She is human. But I never 
would advise a man to ask a girl that question unless 
he means it. She might accept you. So it is with 
asking folks to come to Christ. Mean it. A boy 
heard his mother calling a number of times, finally 
he said, “Mother, do you want me, or were you just 


66 





THE CALL OF THE UNSAVED 


hollering-?” The unsaved are asking the same ques¬ 
tion. Do we mean it or are we just hollering? There 
are two kinds of calls which come from the unsaved: 

a. The Unconscious Call. This call from Mace¬ 
donia was an unconscious call. There was no com¬ 
mittee waiting to receive Paul when he landed on 
their coast. No, there was a jail waiting for him. 
Their need was the call. My brother was driving one 
dark night in his Ford. By a mistake, because of 
the dimness of the lights, he followed a road that 
led to a stone quarry instead of the main road. 
Soon he would have plunged over an embankment of 
more than twenty feet when a man who could hard¬ 
ly speak a word of English called loudly and waved 
a lantern frantically. He stopped the car within a 
few feet of the edge of the quarry. He did not know 
his danger. His call for help was his need of help. 
It was an unconscious call. The same thing is true 
of a person who ignorantly is about to drink a deadly 
draught of poison, or the youth about to take his 
first plunge into sin. These are the unconscious 
calls. 

b. The Conscious Call. Many know the right 
and desire to do it. But they are often bound by the 
fetters of habit, heredity and environment and sin. 
They cannot do the good which they would do. And 
they do the evil which they would not do. Like the 
jailor, they cry, “What must I do to be saved?” or 
like the Greeks, “Sirs, we would see Jesus,” or like 
Peter, “Lord, save or I perish.” 

3. What is the content of this call? They are 
asking for two things: 

a. Personality. They want some strong one to 
stand by them. It is, “You come, not you send. Come 
in person. We want you.” They have the same need 
as we have. We needed Jesus to come in person. 


67 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


They don’t want sermons. They don’t want reproof. 
They want a sympathetic, helpful personality. They 
are weak, they need strength. It is Jesus in our 
lives Who gives us strength. “Lo I am with you 
always.” That is what the unsaved are calling for. 

b. Help. They want help. They do not want it 
all done for them but they do want and need some 
help. They need it for just awhile. For at first the 
unsaved are as helpless as new born babes. But 
there comes a time when the babe must feed him¬ 
self, walk alone, run about, and provide his own way. 
That is what I like about this plan of evangelism. 
We are not making the decision for folks. We are 
just helping a bit. We are giving every interested 
one time and opportunity to think this thing through 
for himself. We are not trying to cram our faith 
down your throats. We want you to investigate 
Christianity and if you are satisfied that it is the 
thing you need and want, then accept it. But some 
one says, “Is it not the Word rather than the person 
that they are calling for and that they need?” Jesus 
became incarnate, so must we. We must be living 
epistles known and read of all men. The living 
Word is the personality of the child of God. The 
Word translated into personality. The Word must 
become flesh in us. 

4. The answer to the call. How are we to ans¬ 
wer this call? There are three ways. 

a. We must first of all hear the call. 

(1) See the vision in the unconscious call. Only 
a few see it. Paul was the only one here. Those 
who see the vision must act as leaders. There are 
only a few leaders. Only a few great reformers, 
only a few great statesmen, only a few great archi¬ 
tects. There are lots of followers, lots of helpers. 


68 




THE CALL OF THE UNSAVED 




The leaders must lead and the helpers must be con¬ 
tent to help. 

(2) Hear the cry of the conscious call. Listen 
for it. Sometimes we don’t hear because we do not 
want to hear. 

b. Go to them as Christ came to the world, as 
Christian men and women have to come to us. We 
must believe in people. We must picture the un¬ 
saved as coming out to the altar and confessing 
Christ. Until you can visualize them as saved you will 
not accomplish much. So long as you think they 
will not come, so long as you doubt, they will not 
come. But when your faith sees them at the altar, 
they will come. You don’t try very hard to accom¬ 
plish things which you believe are impossible for you 
to accomplish. But 0, how you labor to do the thing 
which you believe is possible. It is possible for 
Jesus to save the unsaved. 

c. Help them. Don’t scold them, don’t preach, 
don’t advise,—just help. The drowning man don’t 
need a lecture. He needs a rope or a boat. So it is 
with the unsaved. You can give him the message of 
instruction after his feet are on the solid ground, 
but get him out first. We can help them by the lives 
we live. By the way we do business, by the places 
we go and the things we say. A consistent Chris¬ 
tian life is the very best help to offer. Show them 
how me meet temptation, show them how we walk 
with Christ amid the commonplace things of life. 
Truly the unsaved are calling to the Christians to¬ 
day, “Come and help us.” 


69 




« 


That Far Country 

Text.—“He took his journey into a far country.”—Luke 15:13. 

1 AM going- to tell you a very tender, human story 
tonight. It is a human story but there is some¬ 
thing divine in it too. It is about a young man 
who went into a far country, remained there awhile, 
then came to himself and returned to his father and 
received restoration. This is one of the parables of 
Jesus and it unfolds the great heart of the Heavenly 
Father and reveals his most tender solicitude for the 
welfare of His wondering ones. It is a human story 
for it shows the tendency of every one to get away 
from restraint unless he is held in safety by the 
strong grip of the spiritual. It is divine for it holds 
out a hope for those who have made the sad journey 
and it is a strong warning to those who have never 
been in that far country to stay away from it. For 
the experience of this lad is the experience of every 
one who goes into the far country with this ex¬ 
ception that not every one comes to himself and 
returns. Many never return. They die there. The 
way into the far country is plainly marked by the 
trail of ruined lives as the trail across the desert is 
marked by the bones of dead men. 

1. A happy home. With our imagination we 
see in this study a happy family. All is sunshine 
and all is well. One son comes into the home. Then 
another. Thus is the happiness increased, for child¬ 
ren are a blessing from the Lord. We can see them 
working together in the fields. We see the joy of 
the evenings together around the family table. But 
a cloud began to gather on the horizon of that sky. 
The younger son made strange friends. The folks 


70 


THAT FAR COUNTRY 


were not very well pleased about it. But they were 
tolerant and hoped for the best. He visits dance 
halls and meets immoral men and women. He stays 
out late at night. It soon began to tell on him. It 
unfitted him for his work. He began to lose inter¬ 
est in the farm. The cloud was getting bigger and 
lower and darker. Then the tragedy was enacted. 
The tranquility of the home was broken. A crisis 
was apparent. The wisdom and judgment of the 
father was questioned. The young man took charge 
and issued orders to the father. He wanted to get 
away from home, away from restraint, away from 
the fellowship of the elder brother. He asked his 
father to divide the inheritance and to give him his 
portion. I don’t believe the father wanted to do it. 
But at last he yielded. 

2. Preparation for the journey. A short time 
passed. He gathered all together and took a journey. 
But I want you to notice that he was prepared to go 
even before he started. All was ready. The pro¬ 
cess of preparation had been going on for a long 
time. You always do the things which you are pre¬ 
pared to do. You always love the things which you 
are prepared to love. You always go to the place 
where you are prepared to go in life, yes and in 
death. Judas went to his own place. This young 
man had been playing with vice and then he learned 
to love vice. Vice and love cannot long remain in the 
same home. 

“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 

To be hated is but to be seen; 

But seen too oft, familiar with her face, 

We first endure, then pity and then embrace.” 

He was ready to embrace the sinful life before 
he closed the door of his father’s house and started 
on the way to the far country. The elder brother 


71 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


and the parents said to him over and over again: 
“Refrain tonight, and that will lend a kind of easiness 

To the next abstinence; the next more easy: 

For use can almost change the stamp of destiny.” 

But he would have none of that. He was pre¬ 
pared for a journey and he was determined to take 
it. And take it he did. 

3. That far country. Where did he go? He 
went to the place where he was prepared to go. He 
knew where he was going. He had made frequent 
excursions into it before. He went into a far coun¬ 
try. The far country may not be so far away after 
all. It is a condition or a state of society rather than 
a geographical location. I am persuaded that it often 
lies close at hand. Just as the good country does. 
It is not necessary for a person to convert their pos¬ 
session literally into cash, pack a few belongings into 
a grip, and board an outgoing train to go into that 
far country. No, you can get there by auto. There 
are persons who get there who never saw a train. 
There are sons and daughters too who still eat at 
the father’s table and who still expect their share of 
the inheritance and who are not feeding swine and 
who are not eating from the troughs of swine. BUT 
THEY ARE IN THAT FAR COUNTRY. Probably 
this very night there are some of our own dear young 
men and young women and maybe some not so young 
who have once been happy in Christ but who are now 
hastening into that far country in automobiles, on 
their feet in some dancing hall in a dizzy whirl of 
glee. The far country may not be so far away. 
Persons may slip into it very quickly. The far 
country is where there is no longer any restraint. 
Where the authority of God and parents is question¬ 
ed. It is where the conscience is seared. It is any¬ 
where, where they are drawn from God. Just as 


72 




THAT FAR COUNTRY 


soon as we step into that place where we no longer 
respect law, authority, and God, we are in that far 
country. 

4. In the Far Country. This young man at 
last lands in the far country. He was expected. 
There was a royal welcome awaiting him. The news 
had been broadcasted that the father had given him 
the portion of goods that was his inheritance. There 
was joy among the demons of hell and among their 
imps on earth upon his arrival. To ruin a young 
life is a fiendish glee for the inhabitants of the un¬ 
derworld. The devil held out a bait for him and he 
took it. He took it bait, and hook and all in his 
eagerness. In that far country he shot into popu¬ 
larity like a blazing sky rocket only to come down 
again like a hodful of mortar from the fourteenth 
floor of a skyscraper. He was ready for anything. 
Just like a lot of very smart young people today. 
When a bait is held out that is tempting they will 
take it like a fish. And when they are caught about 
all they do is wiggle and twist a bit like a fish and 
give up. 

He had a good time for awhile. He soon tasted 
all the varieties of sin. He soon wasted his sub¬ 
stance in riotous living. There was one good thing 
about it all and that was his daddy gave it all to 
him at once and when he had spent that he got no 
more. He was limited in that way. He soon came 
to the end of his rope. Then he had to stop. His 
parisitic friends deserted him then. That was one 
way to get rid of them. That was a good thing for 
him. A fool and his money are soon parted. That 
is a good thing too. It is a Providential thing. It 
is a good thing that not only money, but that energy 
and life also soon give way. He didn’t last long 
and neither does a fly when it strikes a flame. The 


73 





SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


tragedy is that there is always some other fool to 
try the same stunt with the same results. None of 
these fools last long. God takes care of that. It cer¬ 
tainly is a blessing that bad men and bad women 
soon have their careers ended. It limits their period 
to do evil. 

Things got to going against him. He soon got 
in a pretty bad way. Famine came. He was in want. 
He had no friends now. He gave very freely unto 
others but now no one gives unto him. Now he must 
pay for what he gets. He has nothing with which 
to pay. So he gets nothing. He came to himself. 
He began to think. (If he had only done that in the 
first place. His hind sight was better than his fore¬ 
sight.) He made comparisons. He made another 
resolution. He determined to take another journey. 
This time he would arise and go back home. He 
would go back to the place where he failed. Now 
we begin to love him again. 

5. He comes back. There is a road which runs 
parallel to the one which leads to the far country. 
This road leads back to the father’s house. The 
lad decides to step over on the homeward road. 
That was a heroic step he took when he decided to 
return and face the issue among the home folks. 
We must admit that it took courage and will power. 
We admire him for that. There was something lov¬ 
able about this wayward chap. There generally is 
about wayward fellows. 

He was still a son. The father’s heart still kept 
a flame of love burning and it sent its cheerful rays 
even to the dark heart in the far country. Some one 
still cared. Some one hoped he would come back. 
Some one still believed in him. As long as some one 
cares and loves there is hope. He came back. He 
was a different boy. He never wanted to see the far 


74 




THAT FAR COUNTRY 


country again. He had seen enough. He was truly 
penitent. He was willing to take an inferior place. 
The father gave him a hearty welcome. We are all 
glad he got back. But there are lots of them who 
never come back. The only safety lies in preven¬ 
tion. Stay away from the far country. If you have 
fallen, arise and come back. Some one, like the 
anxious hearted father, who didn’t want you to go 
away is waiting for your return. Then there will 
be joy in the presence of the angels of God. 




75 




Decision 


Lest Satan Get an Advantage 

Text.—“Lest Satan should get an advantage of us; for we 
are not ignorant of his devices.”—2 Corinthians 2:11. 

T HE PURPOSE of this sermon is stated in the 
first clause of the text, “Lest Satan should get 
an advantage of us,” and the reason we are 
anxious about this matter is because “We are not 
ignorant of his devices.” God in His mercy has re¬ 
vealed to us the program of the devil and the princi¬ 
ples upon which his devices are founded that we may 
be protected. And it is surely a part of the ministry 
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to expose the designs 
of the greatest enemy of the souls of men. You 
would find no fault with me if I informed you that 
your house was on fire, or that a burglar was about 
to enter your office, or if I warned you of an impend¬ 
ing castastrope in your life. So I take it that if I 
can show you beyond a reasonable doubt that an 
enemy is approaching your soul with the malignant 
purpose of blasting it for all eternity that you will 
at least give the matter serious and thoughtful con¬ 
sideration. I read a moment ago from the Word 
of God that the devil, who deceiveth the whole 
world, has been thrown out of heaven and cast upon 
the earth, and that he has come down unto you. 
Princeton is a very important part of this earth to 
us and so we have reason to consider his presence 
in our world, in our community with alarm. 

1. Who is Satan? The Hebrew word is “Satan” 


76 



LEST SATAN GET AN ADVANTAGE 


and means adversary. The Greek word is “Diabolis” 
and means a slanderer. He is described in the Bible 
as “The Adversary.” This is because he is animated 
with a disposition hostile to all goodness and the 
chief opponent of God and man. He aims to undo 
the work of God. He seeks to persuade men to sin. 
He desires to lead them to renounce God. He en¬ 
deavors to prevent their acceptance by God. He is 
sometimes influential in bringing about physical 
sickness, pecuniary loss and even bereavement. He 
is, however, under the control of God. Only by God’s 
permission can he pursue his malicious designs. He 
is the god of this world who has access to the hearts 
of men and deceives them and receives their wit¬ 
ting or unwitting obedience. He is the ruler of an 
organized kingdom, having principalities, powers, 
and dominions under him. 

2. What has Satan done? He was the seducer 
of Adam and Eve. From the very beginning he has 
demonstrated the fact that he is an expert deceiver. 
He approached Jesus with a threefold temptation in 
the wilderness and on many other occasions. He 
steals the Word from the heart of the ignorant or 
the inattentive hearer. He entered into the heart of 
Judas before he betrayed his Lord. He had to do 
with Peter’s fall. It was due to his leadership that 
Annanias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Ghost. He 
hindered Paul in his ministry. He was the cause of 
David’s terrible sin. He often appears as a friend 
and helper just to gain confidence and then he seeks 
to destroy. He has always been the real agent in the 
operations carried *on by the man in sin, but the 
day will come, when after a temporary triumph, he 
shall be expelled from the earth and cast into the 
abyss. 

3. How does he carry on his operations? He 


77 





SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


is a spirit and he operates through some sort of an 
earthly body. It was in the form of a serpent that 
he came to our first parents in the Garden. In the 
story of Job, he comes as one of the sons of God. 
He came to Christ as a friendly counsellor. It seems 
he can function in no other way. If he can’t dwell 
in men he is even willing to enter into the bodies of 
swine as he did on one occasion. But he generally 
uses men for his tools. He tried to get Peter. 
“Simon, Simon, satan hath desired you—but I have 
prayed that thy faith fail not.” He doesn’t dwell 
in the coke pile, in the lonely cemetery, nor in the 
quiet untenanted house. He dwells in men. Men 
are indispensable to the devil’s operations. If men 
would not assist him and allow him to use them for 
his fiendish purposes, he would be powerless. And 
no man would operate with him were it not for the 
fact that he deceives him. His deception is so subtle 
and universal that were it not for the interference of 
Jesus Christ he would deceive the very elect. 

4. What are his devices? They are the same 
as he used in the Garden of Eden with our first par¬ 
ents. They worked with them and they have work¬ 
ed ever since. He is too wise to change his methods 
when he knows they are successful. He always dis¬ 
guises himself. He came to Eve as a serpent, in the 
book of Job as a son of God, to Jesus as a friend. He 
is always very religious. He posed as a theologian 
when he talked with Eve. He wanted to engage her 
in conversation about God. * He wanted her to think 
he was very pious and devout. He was talking about 
worship with Jesus on the mount. He showed Jesus 
that he could quote Scripture too. He tries to asso¬ 
ciate himself with good people. He was with the 
sons of God. He comes with them to church even 
in our day. He is very much in favor of religion. He 


78 





LEST SATAN GET AN ADVANTAGE 


knows too much to act in any other way. But his 
religion is a counterfeit so exactly imitating the 
genuine that he deceives many. His program so suc¬ 
cessfully carried out through the ages seeks to have 
people doubt that God said what the Bible says He 
said. Get’s folks to doubt that the Bible is 
the Word of God. To Eve he says, “Yea hath God 
said?” Then he tries to show that the judgment is 
incredible. Hear him again say in the Garden, “Ye 
shall not surely die.” He makes folks think that God 
is not a God of love because he has placed certain re¬ 
strictions upon our conduct. Hear him again. “God 
knows that in the day you eat thereof your eyes shall 
be opened.” As much as to say that if He were a 
good God, He would want them to eat that fruit and 
implying that He does not want them to have the 
very best things for their lives. So he goes on cre¬ 
ating doubt, mistrust, suspicion and leading to dis¬ 
obedience. He even changes God’s word to make it 
convey a wrong meaning. And He always aims at 
the weakest point in our lives. Takes Eve when she 
is alone, Jesus when he is hungry, and many a man 
when his guards are down. It is just like the old 
game of “Bull in the Ring” which we used to play 
at school. He tries to break through the ring at the 
weakest place. 

5. What is his attitude toward men? He knows 
that God has prepared a place for men in heaven. 
He knows that it is God’s will that all men should 
be saved. He knows that all men by elemental in¬ 
stinct believe in God. And he knows that God has 
bridged the chasm which separates this man who 
believes in Him from the devil by the Atonement 
made by Jesus Christ. And He knows that the con¬ 
dition of Man’s salvation is that man must believe 
in the Lord Jesus Christ. With this knowledge the 


79 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


adversary sets about to defeat the purpose of God 
and to destroy the happy destiny of man. He does 
this by trying to keep men from believing in Jesus 
Christ. He makes them think sin is not such a 
terrible thing after all. That there is no need of a 
Savior and all that sort of thing. “The god of this 
world hath blinded the minds of men who believe not, 
lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, Who 
is the image of God, should shine unto them.” The 
devil cometh and taketh the Word out of their hearts 
lest they should believe in Him and be saved.” He 
is the accuser of our brethren. He is the enemy of 
man though many men are his friends. He even tried 
to prevent Jesus from going to the cross where He 
was to save men from their sin. 

6. What weapon does he always use? He al¬ 
ways uses the same method. The instrument of his 
most cunning device is always deception. He is able 
to make the human mind think white is black and 
black is white, that sweet is bitter and bitter is 
sweet, that good is bad and bad is good, that right 
is wrong and wrong is right. He deceived our first 
parents. As I understand it he deceived Jesus for 
awhile on the mount; he deceived Peter and Judas. 

7. He seeks to deceive the whole world. 

a. Deceives folks in the Church. This is why 
they remain away from worship. He makes them 
think they are too busy, too tired, too sick, too poor, 
that they are not needed, not wanted, that some¬ 
body in the church seeks to do them harm, that they 
have no ability. He causes misunderstanding, jeal¬ 
ousy, envy, suspicion, faultfinding and hatred. 

b. He deceives folks outside of the church. He 
tells them their lodge is religion enough, that they 
are as good as church members. That they are too 
bad to unite with the church, that there are liars 


80 




LEST SATAN GET AN ADVANTAGE 


in the church (I found one the other day who was 
not in any church). He causes folks to be indiff¬ 
erent about religious things, leads them to postpone 
decision, says other religions are as good as the 
Christian religion, offers something new in religious 
ways constantly. Makes men think there is no hell, 
no judgment. Says nobody goes to church, that 
the church has lost its influence, that the church has 
failed. He comes along every once in awhile and 
offers a “Larger Gosper’ to take the place of the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

c. He deceives the young and the old. He leads 
people to do wrong things. They know they are 
wrong but he makes them think they will never need 
to suffer the consequences of their wrong doing. 
He plays havoc in the homes. 

“So they have voted the devil out, 

And of course the devil’s gone, 

But common folks are wondering now, 

Who carries his business on.” 

8. The only safety. “Resist the devil and he 
will flee from you.” That is what Simon Peter 
says, and he ought to know. “Be sober, be vigi¬ 
lant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring 
lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: 
whom resist, steadfast in the faith.” He can al¬ 
ways be repulsed by the sharp Word of God. Jesus 
is stronger than satan. He has entered into the 
strong man’s house and bound him. At the name of 
Jesus the devil will flee. Through the blessed Word 
of God and the presence of the Holy Spirit we can 
detect his most cunning deceit. Thanks to God for 
His Holy Word and the abiding Spirit. We need the 
whole armor of God. Let us put it on to-night. 

sjs sj: 

I want the twenty young men who are helping 


81 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


as ushers to pass the decision card to you and I 
will explain it. Has ever one got a card? Let me 
read it while you follow carefully: 

“DECISION CARD 
“Great Soul Winning Mission 

“I am seriously concerned about the wel¬ 
fare of my soul and that I may receive fur¬ 
ther information regarding the WAY OF 
SALVATION; I desire to enroll in a class 
for religious instruction to be formed at the 
close of this Mission and continuing each 
Thursday evening until Easter.” 

We believe this is a fair proposition. We are 
not trying to stampede you into the church. All 
that we ask is a fair chance to explain the Christian 
Religion. You do not commit yourself to church 
membership nor to the Christian Religion by en¬ 
rolling in this class. For after you have received 
the instruction and have learned about Jesus and 
His plan of Salvation from those who love and serve 
Him, then you are to decide whether you want Him 
for your Lord and Master or not. We believe that 
it is only fair to Christ and to yourself that you 
make this investigation. Now while we are very 
quiet, thoughtful and prayerful, let all who desire 
to enroll in this class indicate that desire by writ¬ 
ing your name and address on the card. 

[NOTE:—A similar invitation was given at the close of 
each service from this night until the close of the Mission.] 


82 




The Sold Birthright 

Text.—“And Jacob said unto him, sell me this day thy 
birthright. And he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Thus 
Esau despised his birthright.”—Genesis 25:31, 33. 

T HERE are several ways by which a possession 
may be transferred from one person to another. 
It may be by gift. It may be bartered as in a 
trade-some commodity given in exchange. It 
may be stolen, taken without the owner’s permis¬ 
sion or knowledge and without remuneration. It 
may be bought or sold, transferred with the own¬ 
er’s knowledge and permission for a certain con¬ 
sideration. Or it may be loaned where the intent 
is to return it or its equivalent. 

Some things are for sale. They are placed on 
the market for that purpose: land, houses, cattle 
bonds, and merchandise. 

Some things are not for sale: gifts, heirlooms, 
children, health, life, character, principles, religion, 
innocency, virtue, manhood. 

When a thing is to be sold it passes through 
three acts or states. It is advertised. It is pre¬ 
sented to the prospective purchaser for his inspec¬ 
tion. It is then transferred to the purchaser for 
an agreed consideration. 

I want to tell you the story tonight of a man 
who sold something which he should not have sold. 
It is about a man who sold his birthright. Now a 
birthright is any right, privilege or possession to 
which a person is entitled by birth. In Bible his¬ 
tory it was a certain right or privilege considered to 
belong to the first born in a family, and which was 
not shared by his younger brothers. The eldest son 


83 


SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


succeeded to his father’s rank and possession as the 
head of the family or tribe. He inherited a double 
portion of his father’s property. In this particular 
case there was a spiritual inheritance of unspeakable 
value. It was an event in the lives of two young men 
in the long ago. It happened in the evening. It is 
a domestic tragedy of the keenest dramatic type. 
The story is very familier and will readily be recalled 
by even the youngest children here. It is the story 
of Esau and Jacob. Two brothers. One was a 
hunter, the other a man of affairs. Esau coming 
home from a long wearisome journey, tired, hungry, 
disappointed, the fragrant odor of cooking lentils 
reached his nostrils and he is almost frantic with 
nervous excitement. “Feed me”, he shouts to his 
brother. “Sell me your birthright”, comes back the 
reply. And he sold it. And thus forfeited his right 
to be the head of the Jewish nation, to a double por¬ 
tion of his father’s possessions, to be the spiritual 
leader of his generation and to occupy an important 
place in the lineage of Christ. He paid a great price 
for his lentils. 

1. Esau advertised his birthright for sale. There 
were three ways in which this was done. 

a. Unconsciously. He had despised his oppor¬ 
tunity to become a religious leader by flirting with 
heathenism. He had married a heathen girl. He 
had made no preparation and showed no signs of 
preparation for religious leadership. He was a hun¬ 
ter, a man of the fields and he was not a mixer with 
men. He showed contempt for God and the things 
of God. He was inconstant and unbalanced in his 
passions and was thus unprepared for a crisis. 

b. Consciously. I have no doubt many a time 
when Esau was hard up for money or something to 
eat, he had offered to sell his birthright to Jacob 


84 




THE SOLD BIRTHRIGHT 


and then probably reneged and wouldn’t do it. This 
is implied here, for Jacob says swear to me this day. 
There is to be no backing out this time. 

c. Observation. Jacob saw that Esau was not 
placing very much of a price upon his birthright. 
He did not seem to know or care for its value. This 
was apparent by his neglect and his indifference, by 
his marriage and his friends. You can usually tell 
what kind of a character a man is by knowing who 
his friends are. Everything after its kind. Birds of 
a feather flock together. It was very plain to Jacob 
that Esau was advertising his birthright for sale. 
He was doing just like many of our young boys and 
girls do today. They are advertising their lives 
for sale. If a girl offers her virtue to a stranger or 
vicious man, he will get her sooner or later. Bad 
men read the ads each day on the street and every¬ 
where. They know the psychology of their business. 
Just let a girl permit a stranger to win her smiles or 
attention, then give him privileges of talking with 
her and then embraces—he will take all the rest: 
modesty, innocence, purity, virtue and character. She 
placed herself on the market. She made herself cheap 
and she was bought. It is the tragedy of Esau 
over and over again. “A woman is too frail a thing 
to trample the world without feeling its sting.” 
There are some things you can’t do, and there are 
some places you can’t go unless you want to adver¬ 
tise yourself for sale. And when any thing is ad¬ 
vertised, prospective buyers begin looking for a bar¬ 
gain. 

Boys in the same way advertise themselves. 
They do it by loafing around pool rooms, smoking 
cigarettes, telling or listening to filthy stories. They 
lay themselves open to temptation in ways that the 
boy of clean and careful habits does not. A boy 


85 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


who belongs to the church, attends Sunday School, 
who will not smoke, lie, swear, or steal has guards 
around his life that the other fellow does not have. 
If you must advertise yourself, do it so that only 
the good and decent will be attracted. Let there 
be nothing cheap about you. 

2. Esau presented his birthright to a prospec¬ 
tive purchaser. This was the second step. The sale 
situation is prepared. It is prepared on the part 
of the seller and also on the part of the buyer. One 
to show to the best advantage the other to buy at a 
bargain if possible. The opportune time came for 
Jacob to buy. Esau was forced to sell. Esau is 
tired, weak, hungry, disgusted on account of his 
failure to get game. He fears death. The odor 
of cooking food fills his nostrils. But I don’t think 
he was any ways near dying. Did you ever see the 
beat of it? Every thing was just set right for the 
sale and arranged by the purchaser rather than 
the seller. Is this not a picture of the way the sit¬ 
uation is fixed for most of the sales of manhood and 
womanhood? There is the creation of a favorable 
environment, generally it is night, at a time of 
weariness. A temptation which appeals to the ele¬ 
mental passions. And this situation usually arrang¬ 
ed or detected by the genius of the purchaser. He 
takes advantage of every opportunity afforded to 
accomplish his vile purposes. 

3. Esau selling his birthright. This was the 
third step in the transaction. He actually and legally 
transferred his birthright to his brother for a mess 
of pottage. That was an expensive meal. Think 
of it, the rank of his father, a double portion of the 
inheritance, the place of the spiritual leader of his 
day and generation. And all he got in exchange 
was his hunger appeased, and if he would have been 


86 




THE SOLD BIRTHRIGHT 


content to wait a few minutes that could have been 
done without forfeiting so much that was precious. 
But no, he must have his passion immediately grati¬ 
fied. He simply could not wait. He was afraid he 
was going to die. There wasn’t much danger of a 
hearty, strapping man of the fields dying from hun¬ 
ger when he had only lost one meal. He lost his 
place in the world and was rejected by the Lord. How 
many a young man and young woman has suffered 
a similar loss! Paid just such a price as that for a 
night ride in an automobile, for a night’s dance, or 
for a night card playing, or a night spent with un¬ 
known and irresponsible companions. Their lives 
have been advertised, presented and sold. All is 
lost for just a moment’s pleasure for some beast. 
Young women, hear me, the price is too great to 
pay. Young man, hear me, the price is too great 
to pay. And yet you are paying it right along. Why 
will you do it? 

4. There must be some protection. I am pretty 
fully persuaded in my own mind that there are very 
few of our young people who go wrong unless they 
first show a willingness to go wrong, unless they ad¬ 
vertise themselves as being ready for wrong doing. 
If that is true then you must acknowledge your 
share of the responsibility. You advertised, they 
bought. You thought you were smarter than they 
and that you could get away with it, but you couldn’t. 
And you paid the terrible price. 

a. We need to be constantly on our guard. There 
are times and places where we are more susceptible 
to temptation than others. The devil knows these 
times and places. Evil people know them too. I 
know a very charming young woman who was al¬ 
ways in the habit of going to the mid-week prayer 
service in her church. One beautiful Autumn eve- 


87 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


ning she didn’t go. All the rest of the family went. 
After they were gone, she felt a bit lonely. A man 
called her on the phone. He wanted to make a date. 
He learned she was alone. He came down to the 
house. He took her out in an automobile and that 
night her life was ruined. You can’t tell me that 
the devil didn’t plan that thing. 

b. We need to learn that there are somethings 
which are not for sale. We can’t justify wrong¬ 
doing on the plea that others do it. Hunger can 
wait. Passions must be held in check. They must 
be controlled. We must practice self control. 

c. Invest the life. God has given these lives 
to us. He will call for them some time. They be¬ 
long to Him. Our lives are valuable. We have ac¬ 
cepted them from God and with the life we have ac¬ 
cepted the responsibility for the life. Jesus wants 
to protect each life and He is the only absolutely safe 
protection. In the closing moments of this service 
while we are all very quiet and very thoughtful and 
under the power of the Holy Spirit, will you not 
gather up your life and your life’s assets and liabili¬ 
ties and place them as your deposit on the out¬ 
stretched palms of the Son of God, and say to Him, 
“Savior, take this life of mine. Invest it. Make the 
most of it. I accept the security. I believe in you. 
I trust You?” Some day God will ask you to return 
the life He gave you. What will it be like? It all 
depends upon what you do with it. Will it be pure 
and true and whole: or will it be stained, tainted and 
ruined? Jesus is willing and worthy to receive, to 
invest and to secure your life; but you must be will¬ 
ing and actually give it to Him. Let us complete the 
transaction. Let us turn our lives over to Jesus. 
Let us do it now. 


88 




What is Lost? 


Text.—“For the Son of man is come to seek and to save 
that which was lost.”—Luke 19:10. 

T HERE ARE four facts stated in this text about 
lost things. There is something lost. The lost 
thing has value. There is a possibility of find¬ 
ing it. There is somebody interested. The lost 
thing is a reality; it is missed; there is hope of find¬ 
ing it; and there is a seeker after it. 

What do we mean by anything being lost? We 
mean that it is separated from its owner, ruined or 
destroyed, physically or morally as a lost ship, a lost 
soul. It is something parted with, or gone out of 
one’s possession, as a lost limb or a lost sheep having 
wandered from or unable to find the way. It means 
bewildered, perplexed as a lost child. A thing to be 
lost must first of all be possessed. You can’t lose 
a thing until you actually have it. 

What do we mean by a thing having value? 
There are some things which have very little or no 
value such as soap bubbles and mud pies. Other 
things have a little value such as a ring or a doll 
in child life. There are other things which have 
great value such as the child itself to the parents, 
or money or property. A thing may have a com¬ 
mercial value and is worth the market price. There 
are other things which are simply priceless. They 
are not for sale. The place the object fills in the 
life very largely determines its value. The love of 
the thing is also a consideration as well as the possi¬ 
bilities that are in it. The more valuable the thing 
the more it is missed when it is lost. 

What do we mean by a possibility of finding it? 


89 


SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


When a thing* of value is lost the first thought is a 
desire to find it, to recover it. This hope is bright 
or dim in proportion to the possibility of finding 
it. If you think you can find it, you go after it, 
seeking. If you think there is no possibility of find¬ 
ing it, you just let it go. There is not much use in 
looking for a needle in a haystack, nor for a diamond 
in the Atlantic Ocean. 

What do we mean by some one being interest¬ 
ed? We mean some one has felt the loss of a val¬ 
uable thing to such an extent that he endeavors to 
find it. He must first know about the loss, then its 
value. Assured on these points then he must care 
enough to put himself in the way to find it. Our text 
tells us that something has been separated from its 
owner; that this something has a real value; that 
there is a possibility of finding it, and that Jesus 
Christ has come into the world for that purpose. 

1. There is something lost. You can tell when 
there is anything lost. Go to a home. See the peo¬ 
ple weeping. They are sad, full of sorrow. You 
know something has gone out of their lives which is 
precious to them. You say, “What is wrong?” 
They reply, “0 haven’t you heard, Mother is dead?” 
You don’t need to read far in the Bible to discover 
that there is something lost. Our text tells us 
plainly that something is lost and Jesus knows about 
it and that He has come to the earth to seek and 
find it. 

a. Is it a sheep? He tells us that once a shep¬ 
herd did lose a sheep. He left the ninety and nine 
that were safe and went and searched for the lost 
one until he found it. A sheep has value. It called 
forth the effort of a faithful shepherd. There was 
rejoicing when he found it. But that is not what 
brought the Heavenly Seeker here. 


90 




WHAT IS LOST? 


b. Is it a coin? A woman lost a coin one time. 
She searched diligently until she found it. It was 
of value to her and when it was restored to its place 
it caused her great joy. But it was not a lost coin 
that brought Jesus to the earth. 

c. Was it a son? Can a son be lost? Is he of 
value ? Is there hope ? Is there a seeker ? Here we 
have the answer to our question. It is a son that 
is lost. He is of value. How much then is a man 
better than a sheep ? The materialist would say very 
little if any. In many respects the sheep has the 
advantage. The commercial man would have it that 
it depends upon the supply and demand. The man 
in the African jungle being bartered for a shot gun 
is not worth the price of a thorough bred merino 
ewe on the market of Chicago. The Christian would 
say the man is worth infinitely more than the sheep. 
“For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole 
world and lose his own life, or what shall a man give 
in exchange for his life?” This lost man is not hope¬ 
lessly lost. There is a Seeker. Even Jesus Christ 
who came to seek him and to save him. Jesus is the 
One Who cares enough for man to miss him, to fol¬ 
low him, to find him, and to carry him back home 
on His loving breast. He is willing to leave the 
ninety and nine and search for the lost one. And 
there is rejoicing among the angels in heaven when 
a lost man comes back to God. 

2. God’s call to lost man. Since Adam in the 
Garden of Eden heard the call of God, “Adam, where 
are thou?”, God has been continually calling to lost 

man to return to the shelter of His Divine love. 

\ 

a. The law given on Mount Sinai is God’s great 
light turned on man to show him his lost condition. 

b. The promise of a Savior from the very first 


91 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


pointed man to the need of that Savior to deliver 
him from his sin. 

c. The ancient prophets of God sounded that 
call of God again and again. Hear Isaiah saying to 
his generation, “Seek ye the Lord while He may be 
found, call ye upon Him while He is near; let the 
sinner forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his 
thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He 
will have mercy upon him: and to our God for He 
will abundantly pardon.” That was the Old Tes¬ 
tament call. This showed man clearly enough that 
he was lost. A thing can’t return unless it has been 
there before. Nor can it be detached unless it has 
first been attached. Being lost is separated from 
God. That is what death means. A child out in the 
forest far away from home knows it is lost. It knows 
that it has been separated from its home. You can 
not convince it that it has no father nor a home. 
But if you can show it the way home you have served 
the child. So men knew they were lost. They grop¬ 
ed on in the darkness of sin. 

3. Jesus comes. The fact that Jesus came to the 
earth proves beyond all doubt the reality of the lost 
condition of man. It proves man’s real worth. It 
shows the possibility of finding him and the great 
heart of the Seeker is revealed. 

a. Jesus seeking lost man. He seeks the val¬ 
uable lost soul of man. Loud and long He calls, 
“Come unto Me.” Over and over He says, “I am 
the way.” He is finding men today as He seeks in 
the crowd, in the home, at the well, along the sea 
shore, at the market place, in the temple, every¬ 
where. He saw the soul of Zacchaeus covered all 
over by business, wealth, bad reputation. His body 
was small but his soul was much smaller; but not too 
small for Jesus to see. Jesus saw him for He was 


92 




WHAT IS LOST? 


looking for sinners. He found Peter, Paul, Mary 
Magdalene, the Syrophoenician woman, and the wo¬ 
man at the well. He halts the lost soul, arrests it 
and offers help. He would lead the soul back to God. 
One of the devil’s most clever deceptions is to con¬ 
ceal the fact from men that they are lost. He gets 
them into a terrible spiritual stupor. These meetings 
are like a great search light turned on the soul. 
They are showing us our real selves. Jesus is seek¬ 
ing and finding men, and men are finding Jesus and 
themselves. 

b. Jesus saves. Jesus not only finds the lost 
man but He wants to fix it so that he will not get 
lost again. But right here is where we must act. 
Christ can find us but He cannot save us unless we 
are willing to be saved. We must let Jesus come 
into our lives. “Just now your doubtings give o’er, 
just now reject Him no more, just now throw open 
the door, and let Jesus come into your life.” This 
we must do. There must be self-committal, self-sur¬ 
render, trusting every thing to Christ. It is just 
like trusting the guide through the forest. He knows 
the way. What does salvation really mean? It dif¬ 
fers from salvage. Salvage is to rescue the ship that 
is in danger of wrecking and bringing it safely to 
harbor. But salvation is the restoration of that 
broken and battered ship to its more than original 
beauty and making her sea worthy again. Salvation 
is more than rescue. It is the recreation of the life 
unto service. Christ saves from sin unto service. 
“The Son of man is come to seek and to save that 
which was lost.” 


93 








What God Expects of Us 

Text.—“Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and 
learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall 
find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my bur¬ 
den is light.”—Matthew 11:28-30. 

O NE OF the first questions we ask when we pass 
into a new environment or a new experience is, 
“What is expected of me now?” There seems 
to be a natural desire on our part to fit our lives into 
the social machinery of our day without causing’ any 
jar or friction. We seem to want to conform to the 
customs and the laws which govern the world in 
which we live. We do not want to be out of harmony 
nor out of step. So we try to determine what is ex¬ 
pected as a citizen, a lawyer, a doctor, a farmer, a 
merchant, a banker, a soldier ? What am I expected 
to do? How am I expected to dress? What am I 
to read ? Shall I be expected to own a car and what 
kind? Shall I wear a green hat or a white one? We 
usually find out these requirements and then try to 
harmonize ourselves with them. Lots of concern is 
given to the worldly requirements. It is terrible to 
appear crude in society. So folks measure up to 
plans and specifications pretty well. It is proper 
that we should concern ourselves about these things 
—the demands of our friends—the community—the 
world. But it is infinitely more important that we 
inquire what it is that God expects of us. And when 
we are informed, we should concern ourselves great¬ 
ly about meeting His requirements. If there should 
ever be any conflict between the requirements of 
God and those of men, we should obey God rather 


94 


WHAT GOD EXPECTS OF US 


than men. So let us put the question before us this 
evening:, “What Does God Expect of Us?” 

1. Some thing's God does not expect of us. God 
does not expect us to be unnatural, abnormal nor un¬ 
reasonable. He does not expect us to lie upon beds 
of sharp spikes to show that we are holy men. He 
does not expect us to live in seclusion from the rest 
of the world. He does not expect us to live a life 
time on the top of a pillar like Simeon Stylites. He 
does not expect us to live like Jerome of old, who 
watched the years giide by in a cave with a skull in 
hands. He does not expect us to go through the 
world with sad faces. He does not expect us to do 
anything which we cannot do with His help. 

2. Some things God expected of Old Testament 
people. This question was asked by the people of 
the long ago for spiritually minded people have al¬ 
ways been concerned about how to please God. They 
asked it in the days of the prophet Micah. And 
the answer came in these words, “What doth the 
Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love 
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” Isaiah 
said, “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, 
call ye upon Him while He is near: Let the 
wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous 
man his thoughts: and let them return unto the 
Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our 
God, for He will abundantly pardon.” And again 
he says, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith 
the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall 
be as white as snow; though they be red like crim¬ 
son, they shall be as wool.” God surely expected 
the people in those days to believe in Him. He ex*- 
pected them to know and to obey His command¬ 
ments. 

3. Some things God expected of people in the 


95 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


time of Christ. In the days when Christ was on the 
earth, the multitudes who pressed around Him to 
hear Him teach and preach looked longingly into His 
eyes and said, “What does the Lord require of us?” 
The Savior looked into the hearts of the simple mind¬ 
ed, tired people and said, “Come unto Me.” To others, 
He said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind, 
and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” And 
again, “He that would be my disciple, let him deny 
himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” Peter 
told the people to “repent and be baptised in the 
name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of 
sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” 
God expected them to believe in the Lord Jesus 
Christ. “This is the work of God, that ye believe 
in Him Whom He hath sent. He that believeth on 
the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth 
not the Son shall not see life: but the wrath of God 
abideth on him.” 

4. What is expected of us in this day? Surely 
we would not look for any less requirements than in 
the days of old. We are the children of God. God 
is our Father. We may therefore expect that God 
would require of us about the same things that an 
earthly father would require of his son. 

a. Personal contact. There would most certain¬ 
ly be a close personal contact between father and son. 
Such a contact as Jesus describes when He speaks 
of the vine and the branches. We see it beautifully 
set forth in our text, “Come unto Me—take my yoke 
upon you and learn of me—I will give you rest.” 
Again it appears in the close relationship of Jesus 
and the Father, “I and the Father are one.” This 
requirement is the world’s greatest need. This con¬ 
tact with Christ—the living, loving, forgiving, help- 


96 




WHAT GOD EXPECTS OF US 


ful Christ. That would solve our problems of socie¬ 
ty, industry and government in a way that would 
satisfy all. To look at our problems through God’s 
eyes—the Holy Bible—would give us a proper per¬ 
spective. Christ wants us to have this contact. 
In the wilderness when He was feeding the multitude 
He said “Bring them hither to Me.” In the valley, 
healing a demoniac, He said, “Bring him hither to 
Me.” Peter sinking felt the touch of His Hand. So 
did the blind man and even the dead. He touched 
the cross and there flowed a stream of cleansing. 
He touched the tomb and the grave was robbed of its 
victory and death of its sting. He touches our 
lives and we become the children of God. What is 
this contact ? It is not simply knowing about Christ, 
not just living in a Christian community, not having 
a father and mother who are Christians, not argu¬ 
ing about Christ, not just attending church or Sun¬ 
day School and not even church membership. It 
is more than all that. It is organic connection. It 
is a new birth. See it in the life of Peter and of 
Paul. God expects of us in these days this vital con¬ 
tact with Jesus Christ and we need it. 

b. Recognition. There would be recognition be¬ 
tween father and son. God has recognized us. He 
surely has a right to expect us to acknowledge Him 
in all our ways. We should do this in business, in 
our social life, in the home, in the shop, every where 
and in all things. It is riot just a question between 
you and your customer, but between you and your 
customer and God. It is not a question between you 
and your friends only in your social life, but be¬ 
tween you, your friends and God. Not just you and 
your family in the home, but you and your family 
and God. Not a matter between you and the man 


97 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


who works for you but a matter between you and 
your workman and God. 

c. Research. God expects us to seek Him in 
these days. He wants us to talk to Him, to pray to 
Him. “Come unto Me.” We must seek the Lord 
while He may be found. Seek the Kingdom of God 
and His righteousness. Search the Scriptures. Jesus 
is seeking us. Let us also seek Him. “Our souls 
were made for God and they will not find rest until 
they rest in Him.” The Mission offers a great op¬ 
portunity for men to seek God. 

d. Love God and our fellow men. The command 
is clear here. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart and with all thy mind and with 
all thy strength.” We need to love God, for loving 
Him will keep us from loving unworthy things. Love 
for our neighbor is just as imperative. Let us learn 
that God expects us to love all men, even our ene¬ 
mies. It was said of John, the beloved disciple, that 
when he was too old to preach, he would stand at the 
door of the temple and say to the worshippers as 
they passed in and out, “Little children, love one 
another.” 

e. Obedience. “Obedience is better than sacri¬ 
fice.” That is still true. Wise parents demand obe¬ 
dience from their children. We should cheerfully 
obey God. He expects it from us. “We ought to obey 
God rather than man.” There is a lot of lawlessness 
in the world. But we Christians should be obedient, 
and law abiding. It is for our own good to obey God. 
And what more shall we -say that God expects of 
us ? He expects us to live happy, strong and fruitful 
lives here. And He surely expects us to dwell with 
Him in the Father’s house of “Many Mansions”, 
which Jesus has gone to prepare for us. He wants 
us to abide with Him forever. Heaven was prepared 


98 




WHAT GOD EXPECTS OF US 


for men; hell was prepared for the devil and his 
angels. It is clearly not the will of God that any soul 
should perish. Let us hear the call of Jesus this 
night, “Come unto Me, Whosoever will let him 
come.” 0, may we wait on the Lord all our days. May 
we twine our lives around Him in such close and 
vital contact that nothing can separate us from Him 
in this world nor in the next. Come and sit down 
with us at the feet of Jesus each Thursday evening 
during the Lenten season and learn THE WAY AND 
THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE. Decide tonight. 


99 




Bent But Not Broken 

(This Sermon was Delivered to Men Only.) 

Text.—“And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned 
against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, the Lord 
hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.”—2 Samuel 12:13. 

T HE BUMPER on my car was bent but I did not 
know it until a man at the garage told me. It 
wafe not broken, only bent. It was straighten¬ 
ed out again. When I was with the soldiers at 
Camp Grant, I frequently noticed how terribly bent 
some of the young men were. It only appeared when 
they donned the uniform and stood alongside a well 
formed lad. The old man is bent in his body but he 
may never realize it until he stands by the side of a 
straight man. A life may be bent and the curving 
may have come about so gradually that the person 
may be unconscious of it all. He only discovers it 
when some one tells him or when he stands along 
side a good, clean, straight life, or sees his life thru 
the Holy Word of God. Our watches need to be 
constantly corrected in order to keep exact time. 
Our weights and measures need to be tested from 
time to time so they will be true. Here is a great 
lesson for us. We need frequently to look at the 
kind of a man we would like to be and then at the 
kind that we are for the sake of comparison. 

“Across the fields of yesterday 
He sometimes comes to me, 

A little lad just back from play— 

The lad I used to be. 

And yet he smiles so wistfully 
Once he has crept within, 

I wonder if he hopes to see 
The man I might have been.” 


100 


BENT BUT NOT BROKEN 


1. David’s Life was bent. It was badly bent. 
There is surely no difference of opinion on this point. 
Think a moment of what he did. Think of his terri¬ 
ble crime with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah. How 
unmanly he was. How awful his sin against God 
and man. Think of the treatment he gave to a val¬ 
iant soldier who was at the front fighting for his 
king and country, while he was at home in safety. 
Yes, David’s life was bent. A life is bent when it 
sins, disobeys God, when it distrusts and lies, tries 
to get away from God, denies God and betrays God. 
Thus the lives of Adam, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, 
Jonah, and Peter were bent. A life is bent when 
it does not believe in Jesus Christ. A life that thinks 
Jesus must do all the seeking has surely curved out 
of line. A man’s life is bent when he mistakes li¬ 
cense for liberty, when he dreams that success can 
be bought without labor, when he imagines that he 
can sin and escape its penalty. 

2. A life may be bent by heredity. Some peo¬ 
ple are not born well. They come into the world 
wonderfully handicapped. “The fathers have eaten 
sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” 
Sometimes the iniquity of the fathers is visited unto 
the third and fourth generation of them that hate 
the Lord. Many a boy is born with a weak body, a 
tendency towards disease and crime. Conquer un¬ 
favorable heredity with Christ. 

b. A life may be bent by environment. Some¬ 
times the surroundings are unfavorable for the best 
development of life and character. Bad books, evil 
companions, suggestive shows, unwholesome home 
life and many other things may tend to swerve the 
life from its straight course. Be master of environ¬ 
ment with Christ. 

c. A life may be bent by habit. The habits we 


101 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


form in early life have a lot to do with the direction 
of the current of our later years. Habits of thrift¬ 
lessness, untruthfulness, immorality, irreverance, 
vice, and so on will surely mean a crooked life. Let 
Christ help form the habit. 

d. Uncontrolled passions will bend any life. Let 
Christ purify the passion. Sometimes it takes but 
a very little thing- to divert the course of a life into 
a very wrong channel. 

“It ain’t the trees that block the trail, 

It ain’t the ash or pine, 

For if you fall or if you fail, 

It was some pesky vine 

That tripped you, that threw you down, 

That caught you unawares; 

The big things you can walk around 
But watch the way for snares.” 

2. He bent it himself. He didn’t go out with 
the other men to do a man’s part. He remained at 
home—the place of safety. He tarried at home to 
do the part of a criminal. His conduct here is de¬ 
spicable. His eyes fall upon Bathsheba in the eve¬ 
ning. He deliberately sinned. He knew what he 
was doing. He was responsible for what he did. 
He was not an idiot but a very wise and great and 
powerful king. He knew the thing he did was wrong. 
He knew she was the wife of a brave and loyal sol¬ 
dier who was fighting at the front. His was a most 
cowardly, contemptible bit of conduct. He couldn’t 
blame any body else for this sin. And it is that 
way with the most of our sins. We have both pre¬ 
cept and example enough to warn any of us. The 
trouble is that men get to thinking wrong. They 
know the other fellow did wrong and had to pay the 
awful price when it was found out; but the devil 
makes man after man in plain view of these facts, 


102 




4 


BENT BUT NOT BROKEN 


go right on and commit the same sin over and over 
again thinking he will never be found out or at 
lease never be punished. All of you men here, every 
one of this great crowd of men know it is wrong 
to commit adultery, and yet some of you will go right 
on doing that thing. You think you can sin and 
escape the penalty. So did Samson. But he lost 
his lustful eyes. They were burned out by the hot 
irons of the enemy. He would not obey God, but 
chained, he obeyed a heathen task master and 
ground corn for the enemy of his people. Any fool 
can do what David and Samson did. Any one can 
bend his life. But it takes a man to resist the terrific 
strain and keep the life straight. David was a de¬ 
ceived man. Deceived by the devil. Under this de¬ 
ception of the devil He bent his otherwise noble life. 

3. He did not seem to know his life was bent 
so badly. It was the old prophet Nathan with 
his eagle eye trained by looking unto the hills 
of God who told him that his life was bent. Men’s 
lives bend so gradually, that they are oft times 
scarcely aware of the turning until the catastrophe 
comes. This is the tragedy of a bent life. The man 
is in terrible danger and don’t know it. Men drift 
into sin. They become adjusted to evil things and 
evil surroundings and eventually lose their sensitive¬ 
ness. Things which once shocked them are now 
passed by without a blush. 

4. God revealed to David that his life was bent. 
He sent Nathan to him. Nathan said to him, “Thou 
art the man.” The Lord told David very plainly 
where he had sinned. He showed him how he had 
broken one of His holy commandments. David paused 
a bit. He looked at his life, at his sin through the 

. Word of God. He saw how his life was bent. 0, 
how it was warped and twisted from the kind of a 


103 




SOUL-WINNING SERMONS 


man he knew he ought to be. That was enough for 
him. Just one good look. It would be enough for 
any of us too, if we could only see our lives as Jesus 
Christ sees them. You can’t depend upon your feel¬ 
ings about right and wrong. Your conscience is not 
always a safe guide. Certainly the opinion of the 
crowd cannot be depended upon. The lives of your 
most intimate friends may be curved the same de¬ 
gree as yours and then of course neither of you 
would detect that they were bent. It is only when 
you compare with a straight life that you see the 
curve. God has given us a straight life in Jesus 
Christ. All we need to do is to place our lives along 
side His life to find out how crooked we are. God 
sends His Nathan to every one of us and says, “Thou 
are the man.” 

5. His life was bent but not broken. The broken 
life is one content to lie in sin, to wallow there, to 
work its way deeper and deeper into the mire. “It’s 
nothing against you to fall down flat, but to lie there 
that’s disgrace.” I know his life was only bent and 
not broken because he expressed a desire to get 
back to God and right living. He admitted his sin. 

He didn’t try to justify it in any way. He came 
clean. There was a lot of good stuff in that man 
with a bent life. Hear him say, “I have sinned 
against the Lord.” That is the lovable part about 
this man. That shows his true greatness. He was 
willing to confess his sin. There is always hope for 
that sort of a man. But there is very little hope for 
the man who is always trying to justify his evil con¬ 
duct. That man is not only bent, but he is broken. 
The life of Judas was broken. He didn’t come back. 

He didn’t try to come back. 

6. God straightened out this bent life. “The . 
Lord also hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die.” 


104 




BENT BUT NOT BROKEN 


It is the blessed word of Jesus saying- to the sinner, 
“Thy sins are forgiven thee.” God is able and will¬ 
ing to straighten out any bent life. David was 
made fit to serve and to live again. Thank God for 
the blessed fact of remission of sins. “The soul that 
sinneth it shall die.” Unless it repents of that sin. 
“Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” 
Unless he finds the harvest changed by the Lord of 
the harvest. Men, we need God in our lives. If we 
are straight, we need Him to keep us straight. “I 
will make you,” He said to the fisherman long ago. 
He says the same thing to us this day. Will you let 
Him do it ? Will you let Him come into your life by 
coming here for six evening to study His offer of 
Salvation? “Come now, let us reason together.” 


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